CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

Curt ate a lot, Craig ate a little and I ate just the right amount. Mr. Green

Let me start my story with the first stop on my trip, which was Cliff's place. I met Curt there and after some chit chat and pizza we descended into the HT. For those that don't know, Cliff has a Sony G90 stack. The duo have just been blessed with six new tubes and were ready to be abused. Smile

Feeding the beasts are a Lumagen, PS3, Oppo and HTPC IIRC.

Cliff fired up some demo shots with Casino Royale, Dark Knight, etc. The Dark Knight really looked good and showed off why CRTers love bat caves. Shocked

The highlight of the demo was 3D. Let me preface this by saying I am not a fan of 3D. That being said this was probably the best 3D I have seen and probably the only way I could live with it. Of course you need two pjs to pull it off. Wink

Cliff pulled up a Peter Gabriel concert and the 3D had real depth and an almost life like look to it. I think this was do to the high on/off cr and the two pjs. Some of you guys that are less critical of 3D and may be on the fence might want to go ahead and give it a try, as it may be more than satisfactory. In the end, Cliff definitely has one of the top CRT set ups around.

The next day I met up with Craig to give him an unexpected surprise. He had the look of a guy whose girlfriend just told him that she was unexpectedly pregnant. The only catch was this baby was a 909. Razz

Since this was an unscheduled stop, Craig only had a little time to talk and hang out. Maybe the biggest thing I got out our conversation was Craig's observation of how a lot of people are messing up the source chain with a lot of unnecessary digital to analog conversions.

After my brief visit, I thought about heading back down to Kentucky, but changed my mind and turned around. I made dinner plans with Curt and fortunately Craig decided to join in. Curt and I met up at Craigs later in the day and this time we got to see his HT. Craig is running a Sony G90 on an IIRC Stewart Ultarmatte 2 gain screen. The screen was just a test to check out 3D. Craig is an insider and tester for Lumagen and Oppo, so that is what he was using. I think he may have fed some of the demo from a HTPC into the Oppo, but I can't remember.

The first thing I will mention is the screen. I was shocked that I wasn't bothered as much as I thought I would be by the color shift and slight hot spot. Curt was in the middle, so the color shift was probably less of an issue with him. I could probably live with the disadvantages compared with the advantage of a really bright image. I must be getting old. Smile

I think Craig said he was switching the Studiotek back in near future. The other cool thing that really got Curt jazzed was the DIY electric masking system. Craig gave us the usual suspects in demo material and as I am sure Jeff is aware of it looked incredible. Everything was perfectly converged and aligned along with an excellent calibration. I asked Craig if he used the autocal feature on the Lumagen and he said NO! Apparently the autocal feature is only good for digital. Oh well, I guess CRTers are used to doing things the hard way. Laughing

In the end, Craig's HT looked so good it even had Curt wanting to get home and dive into his HT build. Shocked

Now, the reason for my trip. I am mentioning this because it has been asked in emails, PMs and a couple of posts. The 909s are gone and I have chosen the G90 as my CRT of choice. As some of you may recall, I bought four 909s two years ago and was hopeful of using and playing around with them. Unfortunately, my living situation didn't change the way I would have liked and I was never able to install them. So, I had a choice to make between letting them sit or sell them. I also had to decide whether to keep one 909 or the G90 or gasp go digital.

There were a couple of reasons I decided to go with the G90 over the 909s. Let me start by saying I corresponded with a lot of well known and respected people on these projectors. I believe MP told me on multiple occasions that if I was going to stick with a 909 then I better keep two because it wasn't a matter of if but when I had a problem with the pj. That sentiment was backed up by numerous other people. I can't verify that, but i can say that it seemed like every time I messed with the 909s there was always some new problem. The funny thing is that these pjs were inspected and given a clean bill of health before removal from service. On top of that, replacement parts are uber expensive.

The second reason was economics. The Barcos are still commanding decent prices. The Sony prices are depressed in comparison. I was fortunate to get a good G90 inexpensively. The 909s weren't as inexpensive, but I still had a lot more money into them in comparison. Also, parts prices are in different leagues.

The third reason was performance. I will start by saying that I would have liked to stop by VDC and have a nice little shoot out, but unfortunately tse said there was little interest. From Craig Rounds on down the line, I was told that the G90 was every bit as good if not better than the 909. I think Craig even discussed it in my original thread. My personal opinion is the 909 has received a king of the mountain reputation that probably isn't warranted. Could Barco have been the most guilty of fudging their specs? Scott told me years ago that if pjs had the same tube, lens, mag combo then the performance differences between them wouldn't be that great. So even if the Barco is better, it would be a marginal difference. Without any hard performance data, I didn't see any reason to choose the 909 over the G90.

At the end of the day, you 909 owners should be happy. Curt and Craig have some test chassis to work with and use for trouble shooting. I think Craig said he already has some ideas on fixing the controller boards. So, hopefully these 909s will serve a useful purpose.

CIR Engineering · Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 3:45 am Post subject:

You got a laugh out of me after I read the first line in your post Laughing

But now I feel that I must tell everyone that you didn't eat one bite of your salad.

And that 909 baby... I did what one might expect of an unexpected miracle... I dumped it in the back room and haven't looked at it since that day except to stand it up and push it into a corner further out of the way Wink

Oh well, wast of space, but I will have some fun once Curt sends me piles of control board to repair.

It was fun having you come over. And I switched back to my regular ST130 screen and it does look a lot better now than when you saw it. The brightness was nice, but everything just looks so much righter now.

craigr

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 2:36 pm Post subject:

Good writeup, great restaurant choice, Craig.

and I would have eaten Spanky's salad! Razz

sh*t, that didn't sound right!! Very Happy

Good writeup, nice to have finally met you. I'm almost caught up on repairs and the shipping out of projectors, so right now the 909s here are also sitting untouched. Smile

Should be able to get to them next week though.

All I can add (Cliff will relate) is that I ended up getting the girl, so I can now turn off my cell in the theatre. (sorry!) Razz

CIR Engineering · Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2012 4:06 am Post subject:

justtaint · Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 191 Location: Chicago

Spill the beans. Which restaurant?

CIR Engineering · Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 7:29 pm Post subject:

Tango Sur

http://folklorechicago.com/tangosur/index.html

Killer steaks for not a lot of money and really nice atmosphere. Pretty close to Wrigley field.

craigr

justtaint · Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 191 Location: Chicago

Very nice choice, been there a few times but I always forget that they're BYOB until I get there.

overclkr · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 4227