[benareeno]

Having owned several crt's and several digitals...black level is important...but not such a huge deal.


Case in point...I just bought a Samsung 710 off of ebay, I knew it was a risk...but it was cheap!


The color accuracy of this projector is like no other...and if you think there is something out there that is even close, let me know what it is!! Color accuracy seems to translate into higher contrast...or a more real and natural looking picture. The relatively low black level doesn't seem to be such a deal breaker for me...in fact, low light scenes are still quite involving...very similar to a movie theater.


I've seen many of the latest projectors too...all having color flaws, especially with green (dlp) and red (lcd).


Seems Samsung got it right several years ago... why don't others simply adopt their color wheel and put out better projectors?

 

[luclin999]

I own a SP-710ae and agree that it does look impressive even today however a few things to keep in mind..


That projector originally had an MSRP of about $10,000 and had some rather high end components built into it for the time.


The product line was tweaked by Joe Kane so as to almost guarantee that the colors would be near perfect straight from the box. In essence these units were calibrated at the factory.


There were many, many problems with production of these units, much of which seemed to be related to the ballast which caused the line to develop a reputation for being defective.


Interestingly enough, I discovered that the power/ballast issues my own unit seemed to evidence were in fact caused by "dirty" electric power in my home. The addition of a decent power conditioner solved all my problems. So my guess is that many of these problems may have been due to similarly sensitive components in the SP-710ae's and might have been able to be resolved with such an addition as well.

 

[benareeno]

how do these ballast issues present themselves?


I unplug after each use...I don't let the projector sit there plugged in. In recommends this in the manual.


Once the ballast issue is fixed, is it good to go? This particular unit seems to have worked for a long time...I'm wondering if it is perhaps not effected.

 

[rovingtravler]

I would agree about black levels.


If you are lookjing for super accurate color look at the new LED lines from Runco, SIM2, etc. The Runco's are ultra accurate out of the box. Look at the reviews on hometheaterhifi, projectorreviews etc.

 

[benareeno]

Well...the Runco is several thousand, and this Samsung was a couple of hundred

Perhaps in a few years, the Runco's will be 162.50, in which case...I'm in!

 

[luclin999]



Quote:
Originally Posted by benareeno /forum/post/20779825


how do these ballast issues present themselves?


I unplug after each use...I don't let the projector sit there plugged in. In recommends this in the manual.


Once the ballast issue is fixed, is it good to go? This particular unit seems to have worked for a long time...I'm wondering if it is perhaps not effected.

The issue I had was that the projector would power up but then cut off at random several minutes later once it had started playing. After looking into it, I discovered that the power in my house was very "dirty", prone to dips and spikes which I suspected were causing the problem (Power drops below a certain threshold and the projector cuts out..).


I bought a power conditioner three years ago and started running the projector through that and have not had a problem since which basically confirmed my diagnosis as to the cause of the problem.

 

[luclin999]

FYI.. If you want to read up more on this projector and the history that some of us here have had with it then I recommend that you go through this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=877066