As far as Plasma's all the same rules aply who has good black levels and grey scale. Plasmas have always had a hard time with this. Some of the Best Plasma's are Runco's and NEC's. Zienith believe it or not makes a kick ass one as well. Most of the good ones all cost about the same as the Runco so for service reasons and picture quality (Runco's come with a processor) My customers ussually look at the quality of the picture on the Runco and it is a no brainer. Like I said the NEC and Zienith have good images but cost almost as much as the Runco but you get no processor. Make sure you watch what ever Plasm's you are interested in with DVD and VCR as well as HDTV. One killer for Plasmas is the Eagles when hell freezes over. Look at the back of the people in the croud and see what is going on. Cheaper sets will make the croud look like mosaics and better ones can handle the contrast.

Jon

[ 01-13-2002: Message edited by: Audiofn ]

Audio: while some poeple here might reguard you as some kinda state of the art guru there is NO FREAKING WAY the set up in your shop can compare to my sharp 27" that I got at wallmart ($179) and have the high defenition rabbit ears running through the sharp vcr. it is all toped off with the DE945 sony receiver and the sony 650d dvd player.

did I mention the rabbit ears are even amplified?

It is all hanging on the clothes line in the front yard, I am hoping the weather warm up so they dry out.. Glassdave had taken most of the porn to his house for "safe keeping" as he says.

the best invention ever: DVD PORN! (so I have heard)

I just put in 2 42" Phillips plazmas in a customers house, the total cost to me was 6879.99 a piece. The picture was awesome and it was built in with some stepped out custom cabintry with all the components in a rack, looked great. I was just there for a party, watching football games, great picture

As a dealer for most of the MFG's, I perfer the Sony for the money.
If I were to buy one, it would be #1 A Pioneer Elite, #2 Sony XBR, #3 Regular Pioneer.

We were one of the biggest Mitsubishi dealers in our territory. I dropped the line due to service issues.

Plasma: Look at Panasonic's 42" unit. If you can find one. Incredible picture.

On TV's in general, stay away from the fluff, and judge every TV by picture quality alone. Get the remote in your hand and adjust the picture yourself if you are at a "big box" store. If you go to a specialist (Highly recommended) they will be able to advise you properly. "Big box" stores pay thier sales staff on spiffs, contests and more to move what they have lots of instead of what is right for YOU!

I'll add my .02 later I have to take my son to school. Forrest

I agree with BillR the Pioneer elite has a tremendous picture. The regular line also has a nice picture. Do not fall into the tyrap of buying a tv with the HD tuner built in as it adds a tremendous amount to the price. Most people have sat systems and the new sat rcvr's have the HD tuner built in and you can buy the Panasonic for 450- 500 and you have the tuner for sat and off air.
As far as the Plasmas go the panasonic is a good price and customer service is unbeleivable. I had one fail and they had it repaired in 2 days in the customers home. Panasonic has all of the parts replaced not just the part that went bad. If you are installing this in a permanent location do yourself a favor and have it operating for a few days because if it were to fail you will not have the expense of removing and reinstalling. Normally these type of failures happen right away.

Thanks for the input. We have narrowed it down to Mit,Pioneer,or Sony.