Quote:
Originally Posted by
mtbdudex /forum/post/12818830
Thanks.....I'll check them out Wednesday.
http://www.hifibuysnashville.com/
Hotel rooms suck sometimes, pillows are different, bed is different, ...
I can't fall back to sleep and it's 3:30am here
Streetdaddy;
I went to the HiFiBuys store tonight (Wed 1/16/08) and spent 45 minutes there with Jon Paul Hooper and another staff member (6:15pm until closing).
Thx Jon for spending time with me, I was upfront about being from Michigan and just "looking" at his store for my own basement project, those guys were very helpful.
I also told him they were recommeded via the AVS forum and I was going to give a "report", he laughed.
That store definitely has a wide selection of high end gear, too bad they closed at 7pm, I only had 45 minutes there.
A good friend of mine is just finishing building his new home and he's gotta go to HiFiBuys, if nothing else to see how he should do his family room HT set-up. So maybe I can swing Jon some business, who knows.
I was able to check out two items very important to me:
a) 2.35:1 cinema wide technology (their set-up had Runco proj and Stewart screen w/electronic masking in room 2?) Way Cool.
b) They had a Sony VPL-VW60 (in room 4?). My Sony VW60 just came in yesterday and when I'm back home Friday I'm picking that up before my local store closes. I'm really excited
a) 2.35:1 observation:
Their room 2, being instore, is 12 feet wide x 16 feet deep, the screen was 80" in 16:9 mode with masking on and 100" cinemeaWide ratio with masking off. Kinda neet to see the masking in operation, quite simple really a motor that moves some material up and down via a roll operation (is there a DIY motor masking thread for me to study, I can build one of those myself).
I was blown away at the difference of true CinemaWide vs 16:9 w/the black bars, after seeing that I have to go CinemaWide with my Sony VPL-WV60!!
My room, being slightly larger at 14'6" wide and 18'6" deep, I can go slightly bigger, so my idea of 125" diag in CinemaWide mode and then 100" in 16:9 mode will balance out just fine for my room, I was worried about the screen being "too large", but I have good feeling now it will be the appropriate proportiton for my tastes. I discussed that with Jon, he said there is "no magic formula" for screen size, all personal preference, some people like to be overwhelmed and want BIG, while others want more balance sized screen.
Their screen was flat and I saw NO pincushioning issues, I stared, then look away, looked back, and never saw anything that bothered me, so for now I'm going CinemaWide flat screen.
So, my room image now is:
b) Sony VPL-WV60 actual working, performance under controlled lighting and medium ambient lighting conditions. I was blown away at the Sony performance, and they have the JVC, the Marantz, Epson, etc there also.
Their words directly:
The Sony VPL-VW60 is THE pj to own in the $3k-6k range, and they sell it's competiton also.
Again, thx Streetdaddy for pointing me to HiFiBuys.
(tomorrow I'm going to the Predators hockey game with big group from work, too bad they arent playing the Red Wings)
Here is their webpage tagline:
