Plasma – LCD DebateMore customers arrive at our door with misinformation on this topic than any other. We’ve heard the same myths repeated many times. Let’s set them straight.
We’ve sold Marantz and Panasonic Plasmas since the late 90s. We’ve sold hundreds over the years with great performance and reliability. When we speak about Plasmas we are not speaking for the Superstore "off brand" products. We much prefer Plasma to LCD in sizes over 32". LCD is fine for 32" on down. But at 42 or above, Plasma is the winner, no doubt.
Myth: Plasmas wear out in year or two.
No!
We’ve sold them since 1998. We’ve never had one burn out. Never. Not one. In fact, today manufacturers predict they’ll last twenty years! With Marantz we can even offer a three year warranty parts & labor. No LCD manufacturer does. We’ve sold CRT sets since 1977. If you were lucky, you could get one to last 20 years. NADs ran bright and typically lasted about ten years. Mitsus were softer and usually lasted a couple years longer.
Myth: Plasmas burn in from regular TV watching.
No!
The History Channel logo won’t burn in on our Plasmas. If you play video games with largely stagnant screens, they can. But… don’t play video games on older plasmas. All our Plasmas have anti-burn processing now.
Myth: LCD has the superior picture.
No!
Even in a recent Sound & Vision report, Plasma took a clean sweep of the competitive measurements. This test was between a generic Samsung plasma vs a more expensive Sharp LCD.
The plasma won in: Contrast, Color, Detail, Picture Uniformity, Ease Of Set Up. In most of the comparisons, it wasn’t even close.
Our Thoughts
Even the best LCDs don’t have great black level. Most have a dark green "cast" where the picture is supposed to be black. Visit us and you’ll see what we mean. We have both on demo.
LCDs don’t look nearly as good off axis as they do straight on. Plasmas look very good at pretty extreme angles.
The variation among LCD products is crazy. We’ve seen some nice ones like Panasonic. Yet we’ve seen some atrocious ones from the Big Box companies. Plasmas vary too, but are closer to each other than LCDs.
Please don’t buy into a numbers game. We’ve seen TVs with nice looking numbers- not look so nice. Even an expensive LCD with a fancy pixel count still has some of that dark green casting- and much poorer performance off axis. There is no substitute for seeing these TVs in the flesh. We have them here for you to check out!
In Summation
It’s more important to pay attention to the product you're buy than obsessing about a theory you read about on the Internet. You’ll find a lot of the "Net Experts" are flat out WRONG.
If you buy a Marantz 42 for example, you get a great looking picture for a competitive price, with a three year warranty. You also get us to stand behind it. We don’t have voice mail. The worst you’ll get is a machine if we’re swamped- and we’ll call you right back!