[rammstein]

Back in November my wife wanted to get a TV. I said- wait till after Christmas- they will be cheaper. Then after Christmas, I realized that the Superbowl was going to keep prices up as well (at least I thought so).

So the models we liked were finally under out price threshold. Ended up with a Sharp LC-42D62U. Its a 42" LCD. For my eyes, it was the best picture within our range in flat panels. The Sony SXRD projection units were darn nice, but the wife wants to have the thin panel.

The most important part was a 6ms pixel response time. I always hated LCDs because of the poor refresh rates resulting in blurriness during motion, but this suffers from none of that.

Anyhow, it looks phenomenal. Shows up great in daylight, and can be fine at night too, so long as you adjust it. I still need to get a caibration disc to get the colors and contrast just right. I have somehow gotten free HD channels over our cable (basically we pay for a cheaper package and they have us on a better plan). But I did know that the BEST picture can be acheived over the air. Unfortunately, the signals are ALL blocked by the tower across from my apartment. However, I DID get it to work breifly when a line of cruise boats was in the bay. The signals were bouncing off of them. Anyhow, my next place in Miami will have to have an unobstructed northern view.

SO NEXT- I will have to get a sound setup to complete this. I already know what I need for receivers, but if anybody has speaker recommendations I am "all ears". Looking for something on the middle level of normal (not including the $6000 audiophile unobtanium). I dislike the sound of most small satellite setups I've heard. Not a fan of the Bose setups (some are, its all about YOUR ears). Within car audio, I always liked infinitys and polk. I heard a DefTech60 set at BestBuy that was pretty good. Also gave the Mirage Nanosat setup a try, and did not like those. I want music to sound great too. I am thinking to accomplish this I will need to be bookshelf-tower sized.

What do you guys think about used speakers too? There's a lot of high end used stuff out there. Steer me right Pelican!