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Well the day had come. My wonderful Toshiba 46ZF355DB which had for a while been exhibiting the vertical lines that the slim Samsung panel it uses suffers from, was leaving the lines on for longer and longer, to the point when one sub-pixel line was now on permanently.
Time to start looking for a replacement. 3D was not a priority, but top end everything else was, so as you can't get that without 3D, it would come with it anyway. I had a few candidates on my list, all at the 46"/47" mark. Samsung ES7000/8000 series, Sony HX853, Panasonic DT50B/WT50B, LG LM960V and Phililps 6007/7007/8007. Toshiba sadly had nothing to sit where my ZF355B had proudly sat as the best TV of its generation. LG went straight to the bottom of the pile due to the 24fps issue. I had a nosy at a few Samsungs. Picture quality seemed good, but the build quality (can't even put the product label on straight) and the noises coming out of the AVForums owners threads put paid to those. Philips frankly, have taken way to long to get their sets to these UK shores. They too seem to have their issues though. The Sony's went off the list and came back due to what appear to be major improvements in build quality in later sets. The Panasonics were more expensive but the extra seems to have been aimed at QC as far more favourable noises were coming from the owners forum for those two models, especially the WT50B. Then I was reading either the Panny or Sony thread, and I think it was MarkieDee that mentioned the Loewe Connect ID he had bought. I'd not considered them at all due to a rather high price tag. Further research revealed the Connect Id set to be only marginally more expensive than the top end of the others. Mark was making positive noises about the set, and I had a Loewe Galerie fairly nearby in Manchester. So I had my final 3 - Sony HX853, Panasonic WT50B and Loewe Connect ID. I picked my day and toddled into Manchester to look at the Sony and Panasonic at Richer Sounds, and the Loewe at the Galerie. I had with me a USB with a bit of media on it. Some football, a Muse gig, and Pretty Vacant by The Sex Pistols in 3 different formats (WAV, FLAC, MP3). Richer Sounds first. A pleasant enough welcome before it came off the rails. They had neither the Sony nor the Panny on display in ANY size. The chap checked the computer and couldn't find any in stock nor could he say when they were re-stocking. He suggested the Samsungs or the LG but claimed to be unaware of the issues with both. It was then I noticed the "Manager" badge on his shirt. Surely if anyone should be aware of issues with top-end product then it should be them. I made my excuses and left. I was starting to get my "isn't to be" feeling. I walked the short walk to the Loewe Galerie trying to think of alternative strategies. Entering the shop I was again warmly greeted. I explained what I was interested in and discovered that there were several of the 46" Connect ID sets around the shop. He took me over to the wall mounted one and told me a few things about the set. Picture quality was good, colours excellent and sound was rich and full. We got chatting and he asked me if I'd brought anything to check the set out with. USB was duly plugged in and the set navigated to my content and played. I noticed some smearing on playback of video and got them to turn all the artificial processing off. Way better. Footie looked as good as it could with the poor quality files I'd taken. The Muse concert sounded a little muffled but I checked that later at home and it was the broadcast at fault. The strobing during the concert was handled superbly with only some bit-rate related artifacting - again not the set. During all this the other salesman and a chap who turned out to be the manager had wandered over. What a difference to Richer Sounds. The depth of knowledge was evident and some very nerdy talk went down. Finally the time came to put Pretty Vacant on. This track shows up dull, uninspiring, rubbish sound. Not on the Loewe. The set attacked the thing with gusto and sounded superb - clear at the top and a tighter bottom than Kylie. The manager then asked if I wouldn't mind giving him my opinion of two much higher end speaker systems with the same track. Now the highest one used electrostatic speakers and I have to say the Connect It did not disgrace itself against them. To get to the point, I bought the Connect ID there and then - it turned out to be the original guy's (Josh) first sale. I wanted one of the coloured speaker covers on the front, but those came with a matching back panel so I went for black all over. Hang on, said the manager. I think these covers can be swapped out easily enough. Do you want us to try? And thus it came to pass that my 46" set with comfort stand and orange speaker cover was ordered. They build them to order for those from the Galeries and was therefore due to arrive sometime the following week. Full marks to Manchester Galerie. Helpful, knowledgeable, no pressure. The phone rang on Thursday afternoon. Set's here, we've done the panel and it looks fantastic. Arrangements were made to pick the set up Friday afternoon with a slight question mark over whether I could get it in the boot of my car, which is a proper boot and not a hatchback. Friday came and I drove into Manchester and negotiated my way through the centre to the on-street loading bay opposite the Galerie. With the help of chap no.2 from yesterday (Lee) the set was placed gently in the car. It needed to be de-boxed to get it in, but the polystyrene bits were easily refitted to provide the necessary protection. Lee thanked, it was off home to play. Installing the set physically was easy enough and all the parts of the stand were well made and fitted together without issue. Full instructions are supplied and were easy to follow. The plate of the comfort stand is a single machined piece of aluminium and has the associated heft and beauty. The stand mated with the TV easily and the set was lifted onto my TV unit, levelled with a spirit level (the instructions tell you to do this - excellent) and the bolts fastening the stand to the TV finally tightened. There is an adjustment screw that can be loosened to let you set a degree of tilt to the set, however mine is to sit plumb so I didn't touch it. A mention must be made at this point to the SCART adaptor cable. It was a (expletive deleted) to plug in. Do this whilst mating the stand to the TV as it is too tricky to do once the TV is on the unit. I plugged the rest of my cables in and went for the switch on and started the software setup bit. Started with a false start - my fault. I'd not plugged in the satellite feed (old non-Sky dish). Did that and started setup again. It found all the Freeview channels and put them in the right order and then scanned the Satellite channels on the Astra satellites at the old 19.2 deg. east position. Took a short while but it was accomplished without issue. I have not been able to set the wireless connection up for the set. It recognised the SSID of the router but wouldn't connect even after multiple attempts and router config changes. Whilst disappointed, I was able to borrow an Ethernet cable from something else and allow the TV to have network connectivity. For reference the set it 10/100 Ethernet which should be enough bandwidth for current media playback. The remote control is both beautiful and well made, and thanks to what appears to be a front fascia of aluminium, heavy. You could give someone a serious headache with one of these. The layout is a little odd, but the buttons are tactile enough and you get somewhat used to the layout reasonably quickly. Time to start watching stuff. Out of the box the picture was good but oversaturated. Time to use my eyes for calibrating it. I've not seen an option for individual Red, Green and Blue values just a colour temperature option. Perhaps this is what is calibrated at the factory as the colours did look accurate. I made some initial changes and found that the settings are remembered by type rather than by input, i.e. HD-Digital, SD-Digital, SD-Analogue. England's romp against Moldova was used for these initial settings. Soundwise, you just basically leave it alone. The only options being volume and the number of speakers being used. The lack of treble and bass control is a serious statement by Loewe - "we're audiophile quality". Any audiophile will tell you that the lack of circuitry for these processing options leads to a cleaner audio signal, and therefore, better sound. Happily the TV delivers in spades and can rightly claim that label. I listened to "Death On Two Legs" from Queen's "Night At The Opera" album and was very impressed with what I heard. You can "mute" the picture to save power and remove distractions whilst the music is playing. I'll say some more about the picture and sound later, but I'll move on to the functionality of the set starting with the Electronic Program Guide. This is an odd take on the grid style of EPGs. It has a certain logic to it though and you get used to it. If you've gone for the DR+ option with an internal hard-drive you can set programmes to record here. I think it is possible to record to an external device on non-DR+ sets, but would have to check the manual. DR+ adds a second tuner (digital and satellite) to the set. Recordings are easily accessed for playback and seem to be native recordings as opposed to transcodes - Saturday night's Dr Who on BBC1 HD looked "as broadcast" with none of the artifacts you would associate with transcoding. I didn't really bother with media playback other than to repeat the "Pretty Vacant" test. Sounded even better on my set. There is an "App" section on the "Media" page under which you can find iPlayer. I didn't see any of the others on there though. Testing the iPlayer app revealed it to be one of the best versions with terrific playback control which the likes of the Wii version suffer from. I wasn't sure where to put this bit so it shall live here. I noticed there was a software update available and attempted to do it. The TV started the download but then the progress bar failed to move despite me giving it over an hour to sort itself out. The set wouldn't respond to any of the remote control's buttons and had therefore hung. Hitting the power switch with a device on the software update" page is scary. Thankfully the set was restored to proper operation with the power cycle. I'm not going there again for a while. Something I recorded using DR+ on Saturday night was Last Night of the Proms. Sadly I'd recorded it in standard definition so the visuals were obviously down. The sound however was superb and I was going to watch it at a later date but found myself engrossed in the rich sound emanating from my set. I did notice another audiophile thing as the programme went on. The sound became more focussed and clearer as the speakers were warming up and wearing in. I have found with previous TVs that the best sound doesn't appear until a couple of weeks into usage. Can this set actually get any better? I'll add in a section in two weeks with an update. Picture-wise I seem to have found some great settings. I watched the Formula 1 in HD on Sunday and it looked superb. Motion was handled excellently and the race was just enjoyed. I also set the DR+ to record the Beeb's coverage later that afternoon. It kicked off with the regulation part of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" then moved into a track by M83 called "Outro" (Shazam on the iPhone to the rescue). Again, soundwise, WOW!!!!!!! According to the specs the set is edge-lit by LEDs. I can find no evidence of issues that plague other sets using this method of backlighting. On a black screen with the brightness turned up all the way, the screen is very, very evenly lit and I can detect no bright areas along the edges. I wonder about the edge-lit-ness of the set due to this and what looks like a pattern of LEDs from a backlit LED set if you look through the grille at the back of the set. Whichever, it has been done with aplomb and a very beautiful picture ensues. Another positive for the picture is a fair lack of overscanning in the non-HD picture formats. Will need Match of the Day next week to test fully as the Goalies name is right at the top of the picture and my Toshiba would cut half of this off. It looked good on F1 today though. When switching between 4:3 ratio and 16:9 ratio content it smoothly scrolls the picture outwards to fill the screen. It does indeed do the reverse when switching back and also scrolls the picture from/to a centreline when switching on/off. Finally, my picture settings. Same settings for all.
Contrast = 14 Hope this helps someone to decide to buy what is an absolutely stonkingly good set.
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