Review Of My New Sony TV's

cfrizz

Hello gang.

Tony reminded me that I hadn't posted a review of my new TV's so I'm doing so now.

For Christmas Mark got me a Sony KDL-40R510C (40" Smart TV, 1080 resolution) and for my birthday, I got myself the KDL-32R500C (32" Smart TV, 720 resolution).

These TV's have a Netflix button right on the remote, as well as menu listings for many other online content.

I will be the first to admit, I am more into music than tv/video. So long as it's a Sony, I'm satisfied. Kudo's to Mark since he paid as a part of my Christmas gift to have my two old CRT Sony's removed. (Even though they still had perfect pictures and worked just fine!) I got him a SVS PB-1000.

This has been a semi expensive upgrade for me since to take advantage of the 1080/720 resolutions of the TV's I had to upgrade my cable box. So my monthly fee for cable is now $220.92 a month. It took 3 different cable boxes to get the DVR box to actually work properly! The first two didn't work right.

Now for the review of the TV's.

The first setup of the 40" TV 1080 resolution was a little painful. Attaching the stand was easy. I plugged the HDMI cable between the TV & cable box, plugged the optical cable from cable box to my Sunfire Vid 1, and my RGB cables from the TV into my DVD player and I was done.

My thanks to all who helped me to get the correct cables that I would need!

The mistake I made was when I set up the WIFI. I stupidly pressed the WIFI button on my Comcast modem which was supposed to find my tv and set it up automatically. That didn't happen, it just knocked out my WIFI completely.

Once I went online to Comcast and told it to restart my modem, it did find my connection, I did the TV setup MANUALLY put in my password and I had a WIFI connection.

I turned on my gear, turned on the TV set up the tv, and I was in business. I got my sound via my speakers, and it sounds and looks great. But it's a Sony TV, so the picture is guaranteed to look outstanding.

Things have improved greatly as far as viewing angles go. There is a little loss of color if I sit in my recliner. But since the stand which some of you hate for it's utilitarian look, is on wheels, it is easy to just move the stand so that it is facing me directly so that I have brilliant color. I'm getting Dolby Digital sound through all my speakers, so it sounds great.

But when I switched over to Netflix, the sound would only come from my tv speakers, which are absolutely HORRIBLE!!!! Mark's older Sony 32" LCD TV has much better speakers.

Needless to say, this bugged me. My vid 1 optical was taken so I couldn't use that. But I decided to see if one of my other free optical outputs would work. So I plugged my second optical cable into the TV, and put the other end into my Satellite output on my Sunfire and WALLA I had sound through my speakers!!!!

The bedroom hook up was quite easy. cable connection to cable box, HDMI cable from TV to cable box. Set up the WIFI manually, I put two IC's from my Polk 1st generation Isonic radio into the cable box and I have better sound.

I have a terrific picture and great sound on both TV's. I'm a happy camper.

I now listen to the news and cable music channels in the morning in my bedroom while getting ready for work, and watch Netflix, music channels and my dvr recordings of the Blacklist and Modern Family in my livingroom in 5.1channels! It will be 5.2 once I replace my Boston sub.

There is my review Tony, I hope it makes you happy.

lightman1

Movin up in the world, Cathy! Now you need an Xbox one.
Glad your new screens are up and running. Thumbs up!

Thorton

Nice review Cathy. I also have a 40" 1080P Sony and the picture is very good. $220 for cable...holy smoley. I hope that includes internet and phone. Enjoy.

cfrizz

Yes it does Thorton.

tonyb

Better late than never. lol I feel your pain on the cable bill too. 2 boxes, HBO-SHO, internet and phone and I'm at the same price point.

Picture is great on those Sony's eh ?

cfrizz

Yes Tony the picture is just great, and I didn't do any of the fiddling with the settings that you drove yourself nuts with!

tonyb

cfrizz wrote: »

Yes Tony the picture is just great, and I didn't do any of the fiddling with the settings that you drove yourself nuts with!

LOL, indeed I did. To be fair though, I was talking 4k sets, a bit of a different animal. I have a Samsung 1080p set in the bedroom that was simply plug and play, no pic adjustments needed.

cnh

Nice review, Cathy! As for adjustments, depends on how ANAL you are, and believe me there are some REAL Freudians on this site-you know who you are (the obsessive ones, a little too neat, a little too proper, a little too rigid, too bound to the rules be they audio or language-crack open a beer for god's sake)? Having said that, I must admit that I can tweak HDTV pictures for days on end and still not be satisfied, lol!