Pearl vs Ruby

Accepts 24p, Ruby don't. Pearl is the best, but it even has its own "Pearl buyers remorse thread" on this forum, which speaks highly about Sony's QC reliability.

since I was the one who started the 'Pearls buyers remorse' thread, I think I need to clarify something.
That was actually intended to be a cheerleading thread for the Pearl. The title was meant to be facetious. The pre-order pricing had just come in on the RS1, which shocked a lot of people- I had just bought the Pearl a couple weeks earlier and did so because
1) by most accounts, including Jasons review here, it seemed like a good value in and of itself and
2) I didn't see anything on the horizon at that time that even approached the feature set or capabilities of it for anywhere near it's price.
I, like a lot of other people had expected the JVC to come in a good $2000 more (street) than the Pearl, so I had no second thoughts at the time I placed the order.

And the thing is, even after I got the Pearl, and found that it satisfied every single upgrade criteria I'd had, human nature being what it is, I couldn't help but be intrigued (and somewhat wistful) over all the enthusiasm for the RS1 on display (along with some of the knocks the Pearl was taking as a by-product)
The grass always looks greener...and there is always something better just on the horizon. This is true for almost every purchase in this hobby.
That thread was started as a way to enumerate the many reasons why I or anyone else shouldn't regret having bought or owning this pj- along with making a comment on the silliness of human nature.

So far, I've only had one issue that's bothered me with my pj, and that was the color uniformity. I used to look to the RS1 as the possible saviour from this, since everyone seemed so convinced that JVC QC in this regard would be much higher (even though they seem to be furiously trying to hit the same price points as the Sony which will undoubtedly enjoy much larger enconomies of scale) yet the latest anonymous review on the unit concluded

well, hell- that's the same as what I have now. That's been the only weakness of the Pearl for me, and it appears even the Holy Grail RS1 isn't going to be immune from the problem.
what does that tell you.

The Ruby is still the better projector, especially once both are properly optimized.
If it's worth twice the price is relative. You could also ask the question if it's worth to buy a $10k speaker over a $5k speaker or a $2k DVD player over a $1k DVD player and so on.

It's a better performer, as easy as that. If you don't care about the price difference, go for the Ruby. Then again, Sony will have a new projector out this year, which will blow both out of the water. So if you want to be up to date, you could save some money by buying the Pearl now and replace it later this year with the new projector.

the much higher price of replacment lamps is the deal killer on the Ruby.
If you can afford that, great. But just even the small possiblity that your lamp fails early, that $800-$1K price of a lamp is gonna ouch.

also, aren't the negative effects of the DI supposed to be much less obvious with the Pearl? At least as far as visible pumping goes..

The lamp is more expensive, that's true. But in the end, I personally like the xenon bulbs much better, so that would be worth it to me. But this is subjective again, I also own cables that cost alot more than a Ruby replacement bulb, simply because I think it's worth it. So the price of the bulb has to be thrown into the equation.

Think of it this way, the price of a Qualia bulb was $3k, so $1k for the Ruby is a steal.


I'm not sure if Sony has made any progress when it comes to the DI, since it's been a while that I played with new out-of-the-box units. What I can say is, that all DI problems can be eliminated by customizing the DI control. Of course for this you either need someone who can optimize it for you or you have to put alot of time into it to do it yourself.