I bought this for my room last week and I am very satisfied. I have a 40 “XBR2 in the family room and a picture of this model is surprisingly comparable. I bought through Amazon for much less than BB or Sears. I have a couple of issues that prevent me from giving five stars: First, it takes quite a long time for the picture to appear when you turn on and switch inputs require more time than my XBR2. The other is that I peave set the timer, most of the TV is on a’ stop ‘button remote. In The S5100 must set the ‘Tools’ on your remote, select “Clock / Timers”, select the time to sleep, and then press the’ Menu ‘button to clear the menu screen. Wow! All in all, none of which is a lot, but the question is what caused me to call Customer Service for Sony. There are a lot of noise in the audio output of TV – especially at low volumes. It seems that the signal is modulated, but higher volume is not so obvious. I have not tried a set of external speakers to see if the noise is still there, but I tried component, composite, HDMI inputs and all the same results. Maybe I’ll update this review with the results of my call to Sony.
Sony on the issue of call audio, I wanted to send a technician. I opted to switch from J & R TV, but exactly the same problem exists on the replacement. I think I was Sony in its bid to send someone. I can not tolerate this behavior because it is our bedroom TV and is often used at low volume levels.
I just finished packing for the drive to return to J & R, which was great BTW! The technology Sony has acknowledged the problem and stated that technical support, say Sony will probably replace the advice of digital audio, but unless the Cree Board of Directors has not been redesigned to solve the problem. Sony Customer Service has refused to help in some way, I ordered a new XBR6 (last year, only 32 “model 1080p) to replace the unit, and said no. I asked for a discount on a new XBR9 and said not. As the owner of several Sony products, including a 40 “XBR2 and a 36″ WEGA, are quite surprised by Sony was not willing to help solve this problem. I was shocked brand loyalty, and think twice before buying another product from Sony. BTW, I’m looking at Panasonic and Samsung 1080 32 “models as a replacement.
1 Comment Received
August 10th, 2009 @2:10 am
Image wise, this TV is good / great. I have had for a week and now the situation is better than two years to superbly Samsung 32 “LCD it replaced. I did the firmware update, but I still notice the contrast shift at times. However, a glaring problem with this TV ( and all the Sony KDL-xxS5100 down as I found) is the lack of Dolby Digital 5.1 audio output.
Yes, the TV has an optical digital output states that the manual output PCM audio. However, it is not that the list is limited to only 2 channel linear PCM audio (which I later found listed under the specifications of the unit input HDMI). A call to Sony has confirmed the flaw and that is done intentionally (although I am waiting to hear from an engineer for Sony because it is). Frankly, I never thought that an ATSC / QAM tuner does not output 5.1 digital audio, as part of the signal. And HDTV is not all in high definition video and audio?
This probably is not a problem for most people unless they have digital cable and surround sound, but in both cases, I am not sure that this can be legal. And as I did not have enough criteria when I was first buying a TV, but now I wonder if outputs Dolby Digital 5.1?
I’ll update if / when I hear back from Sony. In the meantime, I return to TV and get the Panasonic 37 “1080p (5.1 and outputs that fits in my entertainment cabinet).
Leave A Reply