Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Value on the Market, PERIOD, June 24, 2009
The gentlemen who complained about the noise clearly has some other issue going on. I encourage him to try and get a full replacement from his reseller or Samsung. Mine makes no noticeable noise at all.
The B560 is an interesting animal in it carries all of the higher-end features that the 8 series carries at a lesser cost (TOC, CinemaSmooth, etc). It is in fact one of Samsung's best plasmas despite being a 5 series. The "B Series" Samsung plasmas are without doubt the best plasmas on the market. In a world consumed by LCDs and their over saturated, unrealistic brightness and color, plasmas just don't look as bright and noticeable on the showroom floor. The irony about this is that once you get any display home, inclduing a plasma, you'll have to turn the brightness down to achieve any realistic color space. It's a known fact that manufacturers create special default profiles that blow colors out of proportion which attracts the "dumb consumer". It's a shame that plasmas haven't done as well as LCDs as of late, but the B series plasmas are pound for pound the best TVs out there, and the B560 is the pinnacle of that value.
Don't get caught up in super-saturated colors and brightness levels. Black levels and realistic natural colors are what really matters, and plasma is still the best technology for that. Additionally, the off-angle viewing of plasmas is in a league of its own.
The motion is so natural, the colors are accurate, the black levels can't be beat. It's absolutely great. The power usage is significantly less than other plasmas including the "A series" Samsung plasmas. However, LCDs are still less power and heat consuming (the only negative of this TV compared to an LCD). That aside, you'd have to spend nearly twice as much for a comparable LED-based LCD display that still may not hold its own when it comes to naturalness and color space accuracy.
I consider myself an AV expert, and I work for a company that produces Blu-ray devices (no I don't work for Samsung, I work for a Japanese company actually) and this was the TV my hard earned money was spent on. I recommend it whole-heartedly, and I truly hope Samsung continues to produce plasmas as they've got a true winner in the "B Series" lineup, the B560 being my favorite of their line card.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great T V, August 11, 2009
I have had the 58B560 for about a month now, and agree with the posts above that it is the best value available today, and has an amazing picture. How amazing? We bought "Twister" to watch on it, and not only noticed that we could see each and every one of Helen Hunt's hairs blowing in the wind, we could see that the makeup artist left a few pancake lumps on her cheek! Now having noticed these little details, you can imagine how exciting it is when the tornado picks up the tanker truck and throws it at the camera!
The only thing you will be disappointed in is this: once you experience high-def 58" TV, you will really think that the standard def that is still the standard on most TV stations really looks bad. I understand that you can tweak this and make it better, but I haven't had the time or interest, since I don't watch much TV, the little I do watch is usually available in high-def and I bought this rig to watch high def sports and movies (both of which it excells at).
One tip: Samsung makes an amazing line of Blu Ray players that link automatically to the TV and really work great. They do such a great job of upconverting standard DVDs to 1080 high def that it is really hard to tell if you have a blu ray or a DVD in the player. I really like my "all Samsung" system--it really coordinates nicely and you can actually download all the movies you want from NetFlix for $9.95 per month (although the quality is somewhere between standard def TV and DVD--good enough, but not great--I understand that this is a NetFlix issue and they are working on it, and that my Samsung equipment will display the better quality when it becomes available).
I tortured myself for months, researching everything available, reading hours worth of blogs and threads, etc. Finally pulled the trigger on this one and got it from Amazon for an amazing price, including delivery, no sales tax. About $600 less than the big box store, when you take into account delivery charges and sales tax. Delivery was great, picture is great, energy consumption is pretty low (check it out on Crutchfield if you don't believe me) and the heat level is low for a plasma.
A word about "buzzing." If you read all the blogs, and this information is gleaned from about 30 hours of blog and thread following, it becomes apparent that about 5-10% of the sets sold have a very loud, annoying, buzzing problem--this is not due to extra sensitivity on the part of buyers, it is a real problem. This is actually a low percentage, other sets from Samsung and other makers have a higher percentage, it is a plasma issue, and the 58B560 is better than most. It is also apparent that there is absolutely nothing you can do if you get a "buzzer." People report that they call Samsung on the warranty, and Samsung does all kinds of things, including replacing the panel, and nothing ever works. The only real fix is that you should simply keep the box, and if you get a buzzer (you will find out right away--all of the reports indicate that a set either buzzes in the first week, or doesn't buzz at all) call Amazon and be persistant until they agree to exchange the unit. There is no other fix. That is why you want to buy from Amazon. In my case, I waited until Amazon itself had the better price to buy the unit (rather than one of its affiliates) since I was totally paranoid about the buzzing issue and I know that Amazon itself is easier to deal with than anyone else.
People say that the rate of buzzing increases with altitude in plasmas and that you should not even buy one if you live at altitude. It appears that this is not the case with the 58B560, a set may or may not buzz, but it appears that this is strictly related to which set you get and not your altitude. I live at 5,650 feet and mine is absolutely free of buzz.
Therefore, be aware of the situation, but don't let it discourage you from buying this excellent TV, just be sure to buy your set from Amazon or another retailer that guarantees that you can return a "buzzer" and be sure to keep your box and all packing material for at least a few weeks.
Finally, although my TV does not "buzz" it does make a "TV sound," about the same at the six year old 36" Sony Trinitron it replaced. All plasmas make this TV sound, they are not silent. If you want silent, get a LED TV, but it will cost more and the picture won't be as good. I can't even hear my TV sound if I am 5 feet away, and can't hear it at all unless the TV is on mute.
Five stars and two thumbs up on this TV.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing TV, exceeded my expectations..., May 26, 2009
This TV was delivered by Pilot about a week ago and is nothing short of fantastic. From the instant the power was turned on it has worked flawlessly. The picture with my DirecTV HD signal (HD-20 DVR) is amazing - I can't imagine it getting any better. I have not tried any of the calibration techniques bantered about on the net yet, partially because the picture looks so good now that I don't want to mess it up. I am a big sports fan and so far I have watched the NBA playoffs, the Indy 500, some baseball, and a little NFL Network and there is absolutely no blur or distortion in fast action sports. HD movies have also been spectacular with this set. The built in speakers sound fine, but I have them turned off because I run audio through a Home Theater system (single HDMI cable from my Pioneer 1019 receiver).
The "white glove" Pilot delivery was great. I had a 12-5pm delivery window and they showed up at about 1:30, can't complain about that. They carried it to the basement and set it up in about 5 mins. The set comes with the stand already fully assembled, so all they had to do was take it out of the box and set it on my table. I would definitely order another TV this way, it was very low effort on my part.
So far, the TV has exceeded expectations and the hours I spent fretting over which TV to buy seem to have paid off. If I run into problems down the road I will update the review.
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