A great new affordable front projector line up
A few of my buddies across the country told me that the new line up of Epson projectors had been selling very well for them. I thought: “Okay, that’s great, but we are happy with what we have.” Then one day we got a call from a customer who moved here who had an Epson projector. It was about 2 ½ years old and needed service, so he contacted us to work on it. Well, it turned out to be broken and we called to get information on how to fix it. Epson tech services asked us how old it was. We said 2 ½ years, and they said it was under their 3 year hot swap warranty and they would just send us another one! Three years!!! Needless to say, I was very impressed! I love companies that stand behind their products, and a three year hot swap on a video product is unheard of.
We decided to get some in to check out, and, it turns out these are awesome projectors for the money. In the last couple of months they have become very popular at Audio Advice.
There are two models in the “hot swap” series, the Pro Cinema 9350 at $2199 and the Pro Cinema 9700 at $3099. Both even come with a spare lamp! These are 3 chip LCD technology like the Sony SXRD and JVC projectors. They have tremendous installation flexibility, low fan noise and look fantastic for the money.
The 9350 is probably the best budget projector we have ever seen. At just over 2k, this means you can add a 100” screen and have spent less than you would pay for a good 65” flat panel! That’s pretty cool. It also leaves lots of your budget for great audio when you are doing a home theater.
As a matter of fact, if your room does not have good control of ambient light, we actually recommend you get the $2199 model 9350 over the $3199 model 9700. If you have good control of light, the 9700 will however give you a much more film like presentation, as its black level is better than the 9350.
Our installation techs love all of the adjustments these models have. They are really easy to dial in for the best performance.
The Epson 9700 Projector
If you have a failing or old model DLP from several years ago, one of these Epson projectors may be a great way to improve your video performance without spending a ton of money. We have been replacing quite a few older projectors that were originally in the $10K to $20K price range with these. Do they look as good as our favorite projectors that cost from $6k to $7K? No, but they blow out of the water the performance you got for $5K to $10K as recent as 5 years ago, and for only $2199!
We’ve got these set up in all three of our locations and invite you to come check them out!
