60" Sony Grand WEGA™ HDTV
Price has decreased 25% in 2 months since introduction and before Christmas/New Years/Superbowl season.
I welcome the opportunity to share my perspective as an owner of a SONY SXRD KDS-R60XBR1.  I notice that the Amazon.com price has decreased 25% since the item became widely available in October 2005.  I obtained mine through a traditional brick and mortar retailer, but believe the associates of Amazon.com can perform just as well.  The item performs an excellent job.  Once I had the cable card installed by the cable company the performance was outstanding, the best I've ever seen.  On standard digital (SD) transimissions such as a 4:3 NTSC 480i HBO thru the cable card, I was wondering why the \\"16:9 HD\\" picture was cropped.  It was an optical illusion.  The clean-up, etc. circuits were that perfect.  There are a minimum of 22 adjusts possible on \\"Pro\\" view mode.  There are many others that only a ISF certified calibration technician with professional equipment should use for greyscale.   A few notes about the information on this Amazon.com webpage as of 06 December 2005 --- the mass/weight of the item is about 120 pounds, not 300 pounds.  The brightness of the 60\\" unit is fine in my living room at mid-day with all the lights on and shades open.  (My windows face west).  Hands down I think it beats the JVC LCOS, any wobulator DLP, and in most situations \\"all\\" front projectors (which require ideal conditions).  As of December 2005 I have not seen a Hitachi LCOS or LG LCOS, but do not expect them (a first generation product) to be on par with this second generation Sony.  (Sony Quallia was first generation).  I have heard second hand from folks that have visited the trade show in Las Vegas that the Toshiba/Canon SED will not be price competitive.  (Their opinions vary with regrd to performance results of the pre-production SED).  If you have not seen a Sony SXRD LCOS 1080P display being feed with a dedicated source, you owe it to yourself.  NOTE:  Some retailers have Mitsi wobulator DLPs feed one on one by hard drives with true 1080P source.  That is a huge advantage compared to a splitter of over-the=-air HDTV signal.  But it is not realistic for the average consumer.  Before you buy any TV display based on your subject viewing, watch it for 15 minutes and find out the quality of the source feed and how many times it is split upstream of your desired representative product.  Bottom line is it looks like JVC low-balled the prices on their LCOS and retailers are cutting (the substantial) margin on the Sony LCOS SXRD to match.  Sony is adding a 1000 humans and who knows how many robots in their factory in Pittsburgh, PA, USA to crank these babbies out.  If you are a babby boomer, you know the meaning of the Wall Street Journal article of April 2005 that revealed that Sony's business mocel is to  re-establish their dominance of the (HD)TV market with the SXRD in the years 2006, 2007 much like the Sony Trinitron made their reputation in the late 1960's.  Thank you Sony.  I'll report back after my unit is ISF calibrated.