“Oh my God, it’s way too big!” These are not words I’ve ever heard the Wife utter before, but I suppose there’s always a first time for everything. And how predictable it would be in relation to a television. Of course, to any man fifty inches sounds like an absolute minimum size for a TV – to a woman it is overkill.
However, might I suggest the following? When you’ve ordered a television as huge as the masterful 50” Kuro from Pioneer, ensure that the first time you turn it on in your wife’s presence her favourite film is on. This was not difficult round chez square mile as the Kuro arrived for review on Christmas Eve and my wife’s favourite film is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (Incidentally, my favourite film also has the phrase “Bang Bang” in the title but that’s another story.)
Well she instantly fell in love with it and now we are planning to dig out the basement to make a small cinema room to do it justice until I have to give it back. In fact, if I had any criticism of this masterpiece among televisions it would be this: the picture is so sharp, the colours are so phenomenal and the sound is so ball-shakingly true that it almost feels like too much of an event to watch Countdown, or the London Tonight evening news on it. Put a decent film on and you feel obliged to break out the popcorn, chuck a bunch of Minstrels in a pint glass and make yourself a truly revolting bowl of nachos to scoff so you have that real cinema experience. For true authenticity you could always get the Wife to sit in front of you and talk all the way through the film. Oh, she’s already doing that without being asked...
Apparently ‘kuro’ means black in Japanese, and the Pioneer Kuro has the deepest black levels you can get in any flatscreen TV – and deeper blacks mean purer colours. At least that’s what they tell me. All I know is turn it on and it looks like someone’s opened a window in your wall to a brighter, sunnier and more realistic world to that which we are used to seeing in North London.
At £2500, it’s not cheap… but it is the best.