in the $2,000 - $3,000 range. I was blown away by the Blu-ray picture on the XBR, so I'm going back to the shop later today to have them hook the same source up to the W series to see how much difference there really is.

So while I say I'm looking at the XBR4 - it better be a noticeable difference for $1,000.

Anthing else that compares for that price? also, I don't need flat panel, so if the sony A3000 series looks as good - that may be an option as well.

When comparing in stores, the samsungs always seen to have a lot of noise, and the pioneer's i've seen a quite a bit more than the XBR.

not on par with sony's xbr4/5 but close and since they're a good deal cheaper, makes for a great value. I noticed that samsung LCDs never look good out-of-the-box and their floor settings are a lot more retina-searing and cranked up in brightness, color, and contrast over comparable pioneers and panasonics for example. Maybe you should search the web for optimal model-specific samsung lcd settings and see if you can get a desired result at the store.

Samsung's look quite poor with a standard def picture and have quirky operation. Sharp are okay, but still not in the same league.

Nothing beats a Sony XBR with LCD technology for now.

that's what I heard for previous models as recent as the 65F samsungs and xbr2/3 sonys, but not sure if that's still the case with the xbr4/5 and 69/71F.

What model samsungs do you think has poor SD picure? my 65F has very comparable SD performance to the Kuro, it looks very good... but this is from a directv receiver set to 'native' and being scaled by an avr so perhaps that's making the difference.