Any AV people on here. Need some advice on a new LED TV

[Singlestack]

My business is selling and installing audio video and home theater systems. The best TV on the market is a Panasonic Plasma.. period.

The added benefit is that Plasma TVs are cheaper.. Best Buy will try to sell you the Samsung because they still make $100-600 (depending on the size) off of it while they make about $15 off of the plasma. My supply chain is through distribution so I make $0 selling a plasma if I try to price match BestBuy but I still recommend them to all of my clients.

+1 This. Only real reason to buy LCD these days is if you need max brightness for brightly lit rooms during daytime watching. Not only is Plasma currently (and has been) the superior picture technology implementation, if you ask Best Buy salesmen (I have) what TV they have at home, by far most of the time it is a plasma set of some sort.

[Gman]

Plasma displays produce more heat than an LCD. I would imagine the short lifespan for those 2 plasmas was more related to the installation in an environment not suited to the technology.

Does anything that lights up and makes colors suitable, or do you want the best picture experience? This is like comparing ground turkey at the price of a whole steer vs. a prime ribeye. The F8000 being discussed here runs about $2500 for a 55", $3400 for a 65". The last 55" Panasonic Plasma set I bought ran me $600 on a special at Costco.
I don't run my home theater 24x7 and most folks need to sleep at some point. I sure wouldn't want my subwoofer waking me up all night.

Another question is whether or not you need 3D? Adds a lot to the price but content is limited. I also don't like wearing those stupid glasses or dealing with the headaches.

[ruthabagah]

Plasma is all right, but heat, heft and power consumption put a led tv way ahead. If you keep the store/demo setting on your TV: yep the image will suck. If you take sometime to play with the settings, there is really not much difference between a LED and a plasma.

I have 3 tv at home: an Older (2007) toshiba plasma 42, 1 LG 42 Led and 1 Samsung 46: The Samsung as the best picture by far, but the LG is trailing it because of the user interface. We only turn the toshiba once in a while because of how much power it takes. Also , I did replace twice the power supply on the Toshiba.

[RMAC757]

Plasma displays produce more heat than an LCD. I would imagine the short lifespan for those 2 plasmas was more related to the installation in an environment not suited to the technology.

Does anything that lights up and makes colors suitable, or do you want the best picture experience? This is like comparing ground turkey at the price of a whole steer vs. a prime ribeye. The F8000 being discussed here runs about $2500 for a 55", $3400 for a 65". The last 55" Panasonic Plasma set I bought ran me $600 on a special at Costco.
I don't run my home theater 24x7 and most folks need to sleep at some point. I sure wouldn't want my subwoofer waking me up all night.

Another question is whether or not you need 3D? Adds a lot to the price but content is limited. I also don't like wearing those stupid glasses or dealing with the headaches.

Im able to get one around 1K less

[Gman]

The UN55F8000BFXZA for $1500? Who do you know? ;-)

[RMAC757]

The UN55F8000BFXZA for $1500? Who do you know? ;-)

It's actually $1700 new. Seems like a good deal comparatively speaking

[th3w01f]

I was actually just looking through reviews when I saw this post. http://reviews.cnet.com/televisions/. Looks like CNET agrees on the Panasonics. They also have a good test of input lag if you play any FPS games. Looks like the Panasonic S60 (next model down from ST60) is the best compromise if you want a great picture and play games.

[def90]

The brand new plasmas are nothing like plasmas even 2 years ago. The vast majority of negative info that I hear people say about plasma TVs are straight up myths much as most of the arguments for LCDs are myths. The lifespan of a plasma vs LCD is negligable, you are talking 15 years vs 15.25 years. the power supplies in both put off the same amount of heat, every time I see someone mount a TV above their fireplace the first thing I think of is that the TV will be dead in 2 years regardless of what it is, both sets will die and early death if they are installed incorrectly. I would not compare an experience with a Toshiba plasma to anything Panasonic has built in the last decade, there is a reason that you don't hear of anyone even mentioning Toshiba anymore.

[Dalendenver]

I did a lot research before I bought my HDTV a few years ago. Even the high end reviewers were saying that they couldn't tell the difference between 760 and 1080 screens, they also liked the plasmas for the high refresh rate, 650 Hz as opposed to 60 Hz for a basic LCD. You can get higher rate LCDs but you pay more for them. I bought a Vizio 50 inch plasma and have been very pleased with it for over 5 years. You can even tell the difference between DVD and BlueRay on the 760 screen. The only drawback to a plasma, so I have been told, is that they won't work over 6000 ft. above sea level. My son has one he bought from a girl friend that moved to Idaho Springs.

[Cylinder Head]

I have all Samsung LCD's and one big ass Samsung Plasma and I love them. My girl has sight issues and she loves the LCD's.

They are fantastic when dealing with glare, which could be a huge issue in better lit areas.