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RE: hasn't been my experience

Posted by racerguy on December 8, 2007 at 11:49:54

In Reply to: hasn't been my experience posted by Joe Murphy Jr on December 7, 2007 at 18:00:41:

>>nearly all of the Sony electronics I've purchased have been reliable and served the purpose they were designed for.<<

My results have been much more mixed. Out of all the television sets I've owned over the decades, I've only had two that needed repair - both were Sonys. The issue and repair experiences with the second one were an absolute disaster - not just for me, but for everyone who bought one of the twelve model lines that experienced the problem.

My cousin had a Sony Betamax VCR back in the day. The thing was in the shop constantly before he finally trashcanned it. OTOH, I have a Sony VHS VCR, and it works fine (doesn't get much use anymore though).

I've had several Sony disc players. An original Sony Discman, which still works today. A SCD-1, which was fine except for the "burst of noise" problem. My disastrous repair experience with that was well-documented on the Hi-rez forum. OTOH, lots of people have had spindle motor problems with their SCD-1 and SCD-777ES players.

A Sony DVP-NS999ES, which was the flagship DVD/SACD player a few years back. It had an excellent picture, and made nice SACD noises, except that it was very, very cranky about successfully playing rental DVDs. I got so frustrated with Netflix that I cancelled my subscription before realizing that it was the player's fussiness, not Netflix' problem. I ended up giving it to a friend.

A Sony Blu-ray player, which is also cranky about playing rental discs.

My wife bought a Sony Vaio laptop because a friend had one and she decided it was too cute and small not to buy. I suspected it would turn out to be a piece of crap, and I was right. Nothing but failures and problems, and once again, Sony service turned out to be worse than useless.

>>Maybe I've just had good luck or perhaps I'm just a good judge of product longevity/capability when it comes to Sony.<<

Maybe you've had good luck, 'cause the "good judge" thing is pure puffery :-)

I think Sony's reputation for reliability is overrated, and is no longer deserved. Even so, it's a good thing that most of their stuff is mostly reliable, because their service is godawful.

>>I wouldn't purchase a Samsung or LG product unless the cost
was "free". This opinion is based on what I've seen them offer, the complaints that owners' have and the compatibility issues that always seem to come up with these two manufacturers. Neither is worth the headache nor the heartache.<<

I bought a Samsung CRT color television in 1985, and ended up giving it away in 1992 to buy a larger set. The Samsung worked great for the entire time I had it, and the person who has it now still uses it (and it works great).

I bought a Samsung HD STB a few years back when I lived in an area where I could reliably receive OTA HD broadcasts. It worked great.

I know several people with current Samsung TVs, and they've been quite reliable. I've heard and read more complaints about Sony TVs.

I don't have much experience with LG, other than having a Goldstar microwave oven that's around 25 years old and still works just fine. I know of one "hi-end" AV store that carries LG TVs, and they tell me the LGs are just as reliable as anything else they carry (they carry Sony too).

>>Perhaps you need to just get it over with and purchase a PS3, even if it's only the 40GB model. <<

Why would I want to do that? I don't need another game console. The PS3 doesn't have any exclusive games that I'm interested in, and for me it would make a lousy Blu-ray player. From what I can see, there are only two ways to get MC audio out of it - HDMI or Toslink. HDMI won't be an option until somebody builds a quality processor with HDMI audio capability, and Toslink means I would be limited to Dolby Digital or garden-variety DTS. That would eliminate the only real-world advantage that Blu-ray has over HD DVD.

If the PS3 truly is the best Blu-ray player on the market, that's a sad commentary on Sony's current product engineering skills. A stand-alone player, especially a stand-alone player that is more expensive than a game console, should be a better platform for Blu-ray. If that's not the case, and I keep reading from Blu-boys and PS3 fan-boys that the PS3 is better than the stand-alone players, that's a strong indication of how much Sony sucks these days.

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