So, what do you get, LCD or plasma?<\/p>\n
Plasma is sharper, with better blacks.\u00c2\u00a0 But LCD is better in bright light.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, there’s that new Panasonic plasma with the matte finish, that shows no glare.<\/p>\n
How confusing!<\/p>\n
Have you watched anything in HD?\u00c2\u00a0 Makes you feel like you’re at the movies.\u00c2\u00a0 With that rectangular aspect ratio.\u00c2\u00a0 You almost expect the ratings insert to come up before every show.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a religious experience, you’ve got to have it.<\/p>\n
Actually, Felice already has it, in her bedroom, a 36" LG.<\/p>\n
Isn’t it fascinating how the brands have changed?\u00c2\u00a0 In the initial color era, the goal was to have a Zenith.\u00c2\u00a0 We had an Admiral, years before anybody else had color.\u00c2\u00a0 You see my dad won it in a raffle at the JCC!\u00c2\u00a0 It was a hundred dollar ticket.\u00c2\u00a0 He ponied up fifty, and two others put down twenty five bucks.\u00c2\u00a0 When they won, my father paid each of the others seventy five dollars and took the set.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, that was a good deal back in the sixties, when color televisions verged on a grand.<\/p>\n
People would come to our house and marvel at the set.\u00c2\u00a0 Oldsters would say the picture was not that good, not that sharp.\u00c2\u00a0 But every October my buddies would race to my house from school to watch the final innings of the World Series, when they still played baseball during the day, when young kids still cared about the game, when it wasn’t the addiction of aging baby boomers and truly old men.<\/p>\n
Then, three or four years later, in ’65 or ’66, color came down in price to the point where many of my friends no longer came by for the game.\u00c2\u00a0 And then the Admiral burned out and we got a Zenith with a remote control.\u00c2\u00a0 And that television sufficed until my mother got a lousy Sharp from a friend in the eighties, and refused to replace it, believing that TV was a substandard medium.<\/p>\n
Now television is the primary medium.\u00c2\u00a0 "Spider-Man 3" might have garnered $59 million its first day, but the reviews have been far from stellar, the word "mediocre" comes to mind.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s positively American.\u00c2\u00a0 Overhype, mass mentality, all calories and no protein.\u00c2\u00a0 All FILLER! Whereas when one sits down and watches "The Sopranos" in HD, one has a religious experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Right inside the frame is a whole world, not a concoction of lowest common denominator Hollywood pricks with contempt for their audience, but people who want to test the limits and do something great!\u00c2\u00a0 Not that they always succeed, but you applaud their efforts, you root for them, because we want the fruits of their labor, we want greatness.<\/p>\n
That’s what the purveyors have wrong, that we want mediocrity.\u00c2\u00a0 The reason "American Idol" scores is it’s got more drama than the tripe on the big screen.\u00c2\u00a0 We can divine the essence, we’re just not exposed to it often enough.<\/p>\n
And there’s an arms race on television.\u00c2\u00a0 Between not only Showtime and HBO, but FX and Bravo too.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody’s looking for something that hooks the public.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s why you’ve got to have the box.\u00c2\u00a0 To participate.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching TV on cell phones?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a joke. It’s not about the information so much as the EXPERIENCE!\u00c2\u00a0 Draw the curtains, turn up the sound, blend with the screen.\u00c2\u00a0 Get taken away for an hour or two.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what you’re working for, to be able to afford this experience!<\/p>\n
And the price keeps coming down.<\/p>\n
I love gear.\u00c2\u00a0 All the specs, all the philosophies.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about cutting corners in video, but giving you more cluck for your buck.\u00c2\u00a0 And the prices have gotten so cheap that the hoi polloi have ventured in.\u00c2\u00a0 They may be buying Vizios from Costco, but they don’t want to be left out.<\/p>\n
And if you wander into Magnolia, or Ken Crane’s, or some other video emporium, you won’t want to be left out EITHER!<\/p>\n
It’s the picture.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes the same one replicated over complete walls, one set after another.\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s always something better than you can afford, that you can aspire to, that you can dream about.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you might be looking at a 46" set, but imagine having a 70!\u00c2\u00a0 Wouldn’t that be great!<\/p>\n
And you’ve got to get a sound system to go with your big screen.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether it be cheapie theatre-in-a-box for five hundred bucks, or real B&W sound.\u00c2\u00a0 Amplified by a receiver with enough acronyms to baffle anybody but a fifteen year old boy.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you need HDMI to go with your 1080p?\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a learning curve, and every detail counts, because you want to get it right.<\/p>\n
It’s a religious experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Divining all the data.<\/p>\n
Felice likes the look of LCD, and the room she wants to put the set in has glass doors.\u00c2\u00a0 But how big?\u00c2\u00a0 A 40" set NOT in HD format shows a picture only as big as her old Sony, presently in the living room.\u00c2\u00a0 So, you’ve got to go bigger.\u00c2\u00a0 At least 46".\u00c2\u00a0 50"?<\/p>\n
And what brand?\u00c2\u00a0 Sony may be dying in music and portable music players, but it’s on a tear in TV.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like the old days, perceived to be the best, and an extra chunk of change more.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re spending this much, should you pop for the XBR?<\/p>\n
And what about Samsung?\u00c2\u00a0 Their set looked better than the XBR!\u00c2\u00a0 Could that be store adjustment?\u00c2\u00a0 Brighter sets looking more appealing?\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, they make the screens in the same factory.<\/p>\n
Samsung…\u00c2\u00a0 Can you imagine buying a Samsung ANYTHING twenty years ago?\u00c2\u00a0 KOREAN?\u00c2\u00a0 Give me a break!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s one thing the oldsters don’t get anymore, there’s no loyalty to the old names.\u00c2\u00a0 Not even to Jay-Z.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no legacy, what’s best TODAY!<\/p>\n
And the Samsung looks pretty damn good.<\/p>\n
So do you pop for the B&W ceiling speakers?\u00c2\u00a0 They’re blowing out some Klipsch set.\u00c2\u00a0 And Bose…\u00c2\u00a0 Funny how in the high end shops they pooh-pooh the direct-reflecting household name.<\/p>\n
And I see all the shit they have in "Sound & Vision".\u00c2\u00a0 Definitive!<\/p>\n
As for receivers…\u00c2\u00a0 Igor wouldn’t go with anything less than the $1,600 Yamaha.\u00c2\u00a0 You want your Blu-Ray player to render at 1080, right?<\/p>\n
How did the music business fuck up so badly?\u00c2\u00a0 This used to be OUR domain!<\/p>\n
Pristine sound…\u00c2\u00a0 You wanted to get closer to the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, it was a hit out of the speaker in your dashboard, but at home you wanted to be bathed in the notes, you couldn’t really appreciate the music until you heard it on a component system.<\/p>\n
But then the cassette became the standard.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, you could buy a Nakamichi deck and record a tape every bit as good as vinyl, but the prerecorded stuff was duped onto crap, at high speed.\u00c2\u00a0 These tapes were not made for component stereos.<\/p>\n
And then if the CD was perfection, what did it matter what you played it on?\u00c2\u00a0 In the nineties, a stereo became an all-in-one, for a couple of hundred bucks.<\/p>\n
And then we got the iPod.<\/p>\n
The iPod allows you to take your music everywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 But you don’t expect a replication of your home in a hotel (unless it’s frighteningly expensive!)\u00c2\u00a0 The iPod is about convenience.\u00c2\u00a0 What about EXCELLENCE!<\/p>\n
Well, the music companies gave up on excellence.\u00c2\u00a0 So the gear makers moved on to TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, this video revolution has been percolating for nearly two decades.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s finally taken hold.\u00c2\u00a0 NOW IS THE TIME!<\/p>\n
When is the time for sound?<\/p>\n
Well, in order for it to work, the sound has to be good.\u00c2\u00a0 Have you listened to hit CDs?\u00c2\u00a0 Thank god we play them on iPods, they assault one’s ears.<\/p>\n
All I know is today in Ken Crane’s I got that rush from the seventies, when I used to haunt Pacific Stereo, and University Stereo, and Federated.\u00c2\u00a0 Back when that was my number one aspiration, good sound.\u00c2\u00a0 I used to subscribe to three magazines, "Stereo Review", "Hi-Fidelity" and "Audio".\u00c2\u00a0 I used to love to stay home and play records.\u00c2\u00a0 That was an activity unto itself!<\/p>\n
Now I get a better hit, one that I feel in my gut, watching the aforementioned "Sopranos".\u00c2\u00a0 The bigger the screen, the better.\u00c2\u00a0 With not only surround, but a center speaker and subwoofer.<\/p>\n
Recorded music is a shitty experience.\u00c2\u00a0 But video is in a GOLDEN AGE!<\/p>\n
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So, what do you get, LCD or plasma? Plasma is sharper, with better blacks.\u00c2\u00a0 But LCD is better in bright light.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, there’s that new Panasonic plasma with the matte finish, that shows no glare. How confusing! Have you watched anything in HD?\u00c2\u00a0 Makes you feel like you’re at the movies.\u00c2\u00a0 With that rectangular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-cC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}