Sony KV-32FQ 75 WEGA

...player, Panasonic VCR and a Sony Freeview box. The Freeview box is daisy chained to the DVD player so that I can take advantage of the RGB input (Note on most newer TVs these days you often get two RGB enabled scart sockets so you don't have to daisy chain). At the front of the TV there is a drop down panel which included further connections for s-vhs and composite video in. Additional buttons can also be found here to change channels and volume ...
...result I had to call Sony repairers to come and try to sort the problem out - generally they found the closest repairer to you and would come out at a few days notice. They intially tried to fix the problem with small magnets placed on the tube inside the TV and this would generally solve the problem temporarily. However, repeated magnet placing did not work and eventually the whole tube was replaced. Unfortunately the reparier tasked with doing ... more

I 've had this TV for nearly 4 years now and thought it would be good to write a long term report.

At the time (2001) this TV won various rewards (e.g. What HiFi) and was generally considered Top of the Range. Indeed, when i first got it I was blown away by the picture quality. I did however find that the sound from the TV lacked a little in the bass department (more on this later).

The TV has 3 scart sockets at the rear - 1 of which is RGB enabled. I currently have it connected to a Pioneer DVD player, Panasonic VCR and a Sony Freeview box. The Freeview box is daisy chained to the DVD player so that I can take advantage of the RGB input (Note on most newer TVs these days you often get two RGB enabled scart sockets so you don't have to daisy chain). At the front of the TV there is a drop down panel which included further connections for s-vhs and composite video in. Additional buttons can also be found here to change channels and volume should you loose the (rather large and plasticky but easy to use) remote behind the sofa somewhere.

Picture quality as I've said is generally excellent with a good terrestial signal. The TV incorporates two tuners so even with just one aerial cable you can watch one channel on one side of the screen and another channel on the other. With an RGB input picture quality is even better, I rarely use terrestrial TV these days.

Moving up from a 21" TV you'll feel that this TV is a monster - indeed if you try to move it you'll definitely need two people (wearing gloves as the bottom of the TV has rather sharp plastic edges) to do so as it weighs a monstrous 70Kg!

You may think that you shouldn't need to move it that often but in my case that proved not to be the case. Unfortunately my TV developed various picture faults with patches of colours (technically known as purity issues) in corners or the side of the screen. This may or may not have been due to the fact that I placed a home cinema centre speaker on top of the TV but as that was supposed to be magnetically shielded I'm not so sure that this was the cause of the problem. As a result I had to call Sony repairers to come and try to sort the problem out - generally they found the closest repairer to you and would come out at a few days notice. They intially tried to fix the problem with small magnets placed on the tube inside the TV and this would generally solve the problem temporarily. However, repeated magnet placing did not work and eventually the whole tube was replaced. Unfortunately the reparier tasked with doing this didn't do a good job of it and the geometry of the screen was unacceptable. Having done a lot of reasearch on the web I can say that with all large screen CRT TVs, you'll always find that the focus of the picture is slightly out at the edges of the screen - it should be pin-sharp towards the centre though. In addition, because of the nature of the technology lines/pictures are not always straight.

Some repairers will go into the hidden menu to adjust this geometry (you too can do this by finding the correct remote codes on the web - only do it if you know what you're doing!) but it can only do so much. You can also adjust the loudness and bass offsets from here as well - I've got much better sound now!

Since the 'repair' the quality of my picture is now more compromised and definitely not as good as it was when it was new. I would suggest that if you get picture quality issues from new then your should reject and get a new set instead of accepting a repair.

All in all I've learned to live with the problems of my TV, the picture is still quite good (but not perfect for £1400!) and will do until I upgrade to High Defintion TV in 2 or 3 years.

If you have the choice of getting this (or a similar top of the range widescreen CRT) or a Plasma or LCD (High Def ready though!) then it's a tough choice - you won't have any serious geometry problems witht he latter but your power usage will be three to four times as much (100W as opposed to 300W). All in all, recommended as a second hand buy if all is Ok, use for 2 or 3 years then upgrade to High Def LCD or Plasma!
 

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