Anything better than Pioneer Kuro today?

Posted by: HansW on 07 August 2017

Hi!

I am thinking about replacing my Pioneer Kuro 42 inch plasma with a 55 inch Oled TV and would appreciate anyones experience from making this move.

The Kuro was the first flat screen panel that I thought surpassed my old Sony Triniton CRT set. At the time I found LCD screens poor in comparison, especially on fast motion and regarding contrast. Technology has moved on and I would like to buy a new bigger TV but only if picture quality is definetly better. Until now I have generally found other brands and technologies overly bright, tiring and unnatural ( perhaps not much helped by retailers' wanting to impress with overly bright settings).

Recently I have been very impressed by Loewe Bild 7, LG and a new Sony Oled TV. The question however how they are to live with over time. All that impresses at a store may not work over time at home. I would therefore appreciate any input from anyone who has made the move.

A key aspect for our family is also the user interface. We are now using an Apple TV, which is very user friendly, an Oppo 105 and a hard disk recorder. In addition to fre view channels we have Netflix and would like to add HBO. If all this can be integrated into the set it would be a great advantage. We are not prepared to accept a poor UI, on the contrary, we are prepared to pay a significant premium for user friendlyness and a neat set-up without to many boxes, cables or remotes.

Best regards

Hans

Posted on: 07 August 2017 by Clay Bingham

Hans

Here in the US, LG, Samsung, and Sony all make impressive 4k(Ultra HD) HDR( High dynamic range) OLED sets with my favorite being the Sony. Panasonic also showed a superb OLED at CES. Not yet available here but if you can find it in Europe give it a look. It may be the best of the lot. All the top models from the above manufacturers are significantly better than the Kuro IMO. I used to sell Kuro at a friends store and had the prior Pioneer Elite myself. I now have one the last Panasonic plasma models made, which in most areas, is at least equal to the Kuro. But OLED 4K HDR wow!

Posted on: 07 August 2017 by Bananahead

I think that one of the things that made the Kuro so great was that its factory settings were very good so there wasn't an immediate need for a calibration. The current OLED screens are better than Kuro once they have been set up properly so at least do some web reading about recommended settings.

Posted on: 08 August 2017 by HansW

Thanks a lot for your input.

What about user friendlyness. Are the new sets easy to use? Are some brands/sets better than others?

Hans

Posted on: 08 August 2017 by Hmack

I agree with the comments above.

The Pioneer Kuro was fantastic in its day, but is bettered by most of the best LED models on the market today, let alone the OLEDS.

If you are intimidated by the price of some of the larger OLEDS, then some of the better larger LEDs such as the Panasonic tx-58dx902b (4K with superb HDR quality) can be picked up for quite reasonable money, and offers (to my eyes) a superbly natural looking picture quality.

I am pretty sure you won't miss the Kuro if you decide to purchase a new TV, OLED or not.

Posted on: 08 August 2017 by count.d

I bought the LG oled 55b6v and it's far superior to the plasmas. Completely different league. Not even worth listing the individual improvements. I can't comment on the quality and quality control on the new sleds from other manufactures, but my LG is absolutely faultless. No dead pixels, no banding, no colour tints in the whites, etc, all the faults you'd expect...none. Well done LG, you've come from nowhere within 3 years and wiped everyone else off the market. Very user friendly too, great remote. Very happy customer, and I say that not expecting much from a tv purchase. I had the wonderful Pioneer plasma before, but old is way better.

Posted on: 08 August 2017 by MDS

count.d posted:
I bought the LG oled 55b6v and it's far superior to the plasmas. Completely different league. Not even worth listing the individual improvements. I can't comment on the quality and quality control on the new sleds from other manufactures, but my LG is absolutely faultless. No dead pixels, no banding, no colour tints in the whites, etc, all the faults you'd expect...none. Well done LG, you've come from nowhere within 3 years and wiped everyone else off the market. Very user friendly too, great remote. Very happy customer, and I say that not expecting much from a tv purchase. I had the wonderful Pioneer plasma before, but old is way better.

I bought that model a couple of months ago. Very knowledgeable friend calibrated it for me and I must say it is very impressive indeed.

Posted on: 10 August 2017 by fernar

If you come from a plasma TV and especially a Kuro model, I would strongly suggest that you look at an OLED TV vs LED - I moved from a 4K Samsung TV to a LG OLED screen and in my view the picture quality was way above the Samsung - especially in regards to the deep black backgrounds and contrast levels ... in the case of the Samsung, blacks were never black - always gray..

Before purchasing my OLED, I did have a look at latest Samsung TVs - however these now appear to have the backlight source at the bottom of the screen - so when you are watching a film where there are black bars top and bottom, these bars have light bleed which detract from the picture quality.... however I would say that if you tend to watch TV the majority of time in a bright room, then maybe the black-light issue I mentioned will not be a big issue, since I would say that the Samsung TV had the best 'black' from all the LED TVs I looked at and their color reproduction is as good or even better than OLED and they do offer a brighter screen.... I have not checked recently, but it used to be that the top of the range Samsung TVs had full array backlighting - but the cost of these TVs were the same as OLED TV.

As for ease of use - all the latest TVs (Samsung, LG, Philips, Sony) are smart TV, which means the function they offer will be lot more than the Pioneer model had - but on the whole the usability is very good.