Tweaky Posted March 3, 2022 Posted March 3, 2022 Since there are bound to be a few of these popping up pretty soon, and that this is THE TV pretty much everybody who is into the latest tech regarding TV's is going to be interested in, I though better to put the reviews in one thread. So here is the first by DIGITAL TRENDS that was posted a few hours ago.
johnpendles Posted June 9, 2022 Posted June 9, 2022 Torn between waiting for this and going for a G2/C2. Will be getting the 83" G2 as our main set, but want a second TV for the parents retreat. This 2nd room is not as big so i'm thinking a 65" should be enough, the lack of sizing with the A95K was my main gripe but if 65" is sufficient then perhaps worth waiting for this rather than getting a C2 as the second TV.
JohnL Posted June 10, 2022 Posted June 10, 2022 (edited) On 09/06/2022 at 4:23 AM, johnpendles said: Torn between waiting for this and going for a G2/C2. Will be getting the 83" G2 as our main set, but want a second TV for the parents retreat. This 2nd room is not as big so i'm thinking a 65" should be enough, the lack of sizing with the A95K was my main gripe but if 65" is sufficient then perhaps worth waiting for this rather than getting a C2 as the second TV. Expand Why not just get one of these on run out? https://www.thegoodguys.com.au/sony-65-inches-a80j-4k-bravia-xr-oled-google-tv-xr65a80j Should able to score one somewhere for around/under $3K now Awesome unit. Edited June 10, 2022 by JohnL
Tweaky Posted June 10, 2022 Author Posted June 10, 2022 On 10/06/2022 at 8:29 AM, JohnL said: Why not just get one of these on run out? https://www.thegoodguys.com.au/sony-65-inches-a80j-4k-bravia-xr-oled-google-tv-xr65a80j Should able to score one somewhere for around/under $3K now Awesome unit. Expand One would hope so, but since manufacturing and supply problems there is no drop in the prices. Can't see any happening soon either.......Late July is ETA of the new models, no guarantee on that either, its been delayed three times already 1
Tweaky Posted June 24, 2022 Author Posted June 24, 2022 (edited) Vincent - HDTVTEST has just put up his review of the A95K, and he compares it to the Samsung S95B which uses exactly the same panel. A sort of a mixed bag RE: Performance, some things better some no so hot , at least he compares it to the A90J as well Edited June 24, 2022 by Tweaky
Tweaky Posted July 21, 2022 Author Posted July 21, 2022 JB has suddenly put the 65" A95K up for preorder at $5995 plus $59 delivery....ETA 8th August. https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/sony-a95k-65-bravia-xr-qd-oled-4k-hdr-google-tv-2022
Tweaky Posted August 14, 2022 Author Posted August 14, 2022 (edited) Here's a unusual review for you to watch. It's from a Japanese YouTuber that shows the side by side difference between the Sony A90J and the new A95K. You can see straight away how much more colourful the A95K is, but, the Black level does look slightly better on the A90J, to me at least. Screen uniformity on the A95K is considerably better, and this isn't a panel lottery draw type thing either, as all new owners are reporting how well their TV's are in this respect. At around 7m in the video he goes on to say how the A95K's pixel array doesn't make it as good for viewing Text from a computer, making it look slightly jagged in comparison. From 8.50 where there is stills showing the robot in a city, you can easily see how the whole picture on the A90J looks very dull and gray'd out compared to the A95K. At 10.40 is one of the most telling differences with the Geisha knelt down on the mat, just look at the difference in the definition and colour of the shadows on the mat below her left hand, much more realistic. Good luck getting a A95K any time soon, I pre-ordered mine back on the 21st of July. I was expecting it to arrive some time after the August 8th release date, but despite me emailing JB asking when I can expect my TV, I got a reply yesterday saying the A95K is still on back order, and they don't know when the stock will arrive. I think the next shipment was slated for August 29th, but if the scarcity of stock of the 65" A95K in the USA and Europe is anything to go by, it could be a much longer wait than that. Edited August 14, 2022 by Tweaky
DonGreen Posted August 15, 2022 Posted August 15, 2022 Surely the color level difference shown through most of that video has to do with calibration? I haven't seen the A95K in real life though, but surely the difference between the models can't be as much as the video shows. But who knows, by the time I save for one, I may be able to afford the A95K anyway
Tweaky Posted August 15, 2022 Author Posted August 15, 2022 (edited) On 15/08/2022 at 12:05 AM, DonGreen said: Surely the color level difference shown through most of that video has to do with calibration? I haven't seen the A95K in real life though, but surely the difference between the models can't be as much as the video shows. But who knows, by the time I save for one, I may be able to afford the A95K anyway Expand Apparently it is when reproducing 4K material, which is what is shown in that video. I'd think it safe to say both the A90J and A95K were calibrated to the same levels for the video comparison above, just by looking at the shots of the colour bars from 5.10 to 5.46, same with the White Balance that immediately follows from then. The light output has been evenly matched as well. I'm not so sure if there is the same amount of difference when replaying standard HD material, as I have yet to see a side by side video like the one above showing that comparison. I suppose what difference you find personally will be down to comparisons to your current TV, the lighting conditions you view in, and the material you are watching. Some owners have reported seeing a big difference, others not so much, but I think in all the cases that reported not seeing that much of a difference, they were using Streamed Material, and might not have had their TV's setup to play that back at it's best. Which TBH, a lot of people barely touch a lot of the available controls on their TV, as they don't understand what they are, and don't know how and when to use them, or have them switched out, plus Streamed content quality can vary a lot, that's when it's actually streaming out the same signal that it has been tagged as having, which has been know not to be the case on a lot of occasions. One thing I have found out that is relevant to those who have their own calibration gear, is that the White Balance controls are locked to 10 point out of the box. You need to download and install the Calaman App for Bravia to the TV first to unlock 20 point White Balance. This App also unlocks two additional Presets. I've just bought a new Calibrite [previously branded as Xrite] ColorChecker Display Plus meter, which is designed for today's higher light output TV's, and can measure up to 2000 nits, the Display Pro only calibrates to 1000 nits and is only $40 cheaper, so it was a no brainer which to go for. https://imagescience.com.au/products/calibrators/calibrator-recommendations Edited August 15, 2022 by Tweaky
Tweaky Posted August 16, 2022 Author Posted August 16, 2022 I found another side by side comparison between the A90J and A95K, this time in Game Mode.........Suggest you watch this video in Full Screen mode This time the A90J has been calibrated according to the YouTuber, and the A95K hasn't.
agisthos Posted August 17, 2022 Posted August 17, 2022 I got the G2 because I couldn't wait. But from previous experience I know for upscaling lower def content like 720/1080p to 4k, and for motion handling, the Sony is always going to be superior. IMO its worth paying the extra $500-800 premium to get that. I hate the A95K's stand tho. Ever since the A1 actually, those stands on the premium model are stupid.
Tweaky Posted August 17, 2022 Author Posted August 17, 2022 On 17/08/2022 at 5:16 AM, agisthos said: I got the G2 because I couldn't wait. But from previous experience I know for upscaling lower def content like 720/1080p to 4k, and for motion handling, the Sony is always going to be superior. IMO its worth paying the extra $500-800 premium to get that. I hate the A95K's stand tho. Ever since the A1 actually, those stands on the premium model are stupid. Expand I STILL have no ETA of my per-order A95K. I have been asked by JB if I want to cancel my order......I see the price has dropped near to $500 from my preorder/payment. If they can't deliver when you have paid a premium as a Pre oderer , god knows when you would be able to get one when walking into a store. I've done a JB store availability search , none within 500km of the Sydney CBD.....Strangely there seems to be at lest one available from JB Newcastle last time I searched. But I wouldn't believe that. I sent my sister money to buy a 65"SONY X90K. a week ago. After asking which JB stores had then in stock, I sent her to JB, BALLINA. Just as well I didn't pre pay, as as soon as she got there they said they didn't have any in stock, despite saying they did.....My sister pissed off after a fruitless drive is NOT something you would want to encounter She drove to god knows where, at least 100km, to get one from Hardly Normal, who had A X90K in stock. Living in the country is a PITA
agisthos Posted August 17, 2022 Posted August 17, 2022 On 17/08/2022 at 6:36 AM, Tweaky said: I STILL have no ETA of my per-order A95K. I have been asked by JB if I want to cancel my order......I see the price has dropped near to $500 from my preorder/payment. If they can't deliver when you have paid a premium as a Pre oderer , god knows when you would be able to get one when walking into a store. Expand This is exactly why I did not wait for the A95K. It could be months before its widely available (and discounted below 5k). 1
Tweaky Posted August 19, 2022 Author Posted August 19, 2022 Yet another review, this time from the UK based AVforum.....they gave it a 10/10 which I think is s first. https://www.avforums.com/reviews/sony-a95k-bravia-xr-55a95k-qd-oled-tv-review.20028/
Tweaky Posted September 7, 2022 Author Posted September 7, 2022 (edited) OK, RTINGS.com has just put it review of the SONY A95K up. https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/a95k-oled They also give their calibration settings for SDR and HDR at the available default 10 point white balance. If you install the Calman for Bravia App on your TV [Available from the Google store-free ] and get it up and running, it will give you two extra presets -Expert 1 and 2, and open up the white balance to 20 point . The given calibration settings are safe to try, as you can always just press reset to wipe them. If they work [Make your TV look better] with your particular TV is another matter, as each individual TV will measure differently, and the calibration settings will be different because of it, so copying somebody else's settings usually isn't recommend on the whole. https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/a95k-oled/settings I wrote down all the calibration settings from the RTINGS site above, and looking at them, and comparing them to a full 20 point calibration settings I got from AVS forum member D-NICE, they do seem err on the side of caution, with no settings going over -5, and a lot have them have no adjustment applied to them at all. Where on D-NICE's 20 point settings, some go as high as -14 I'm pretty sure that even though RTINGS advise people not to copy their posted calibration settings, they know darn well people do, otherwise why post them, hence their settings being on the cautious side, and unlikely to screw up a TV if used. You should get a better picture than the OOTB settings if you do decide to use them, as looking at them, they seem to mainly address the slight Red push the A95K can show Edited September 8, 2022 by Tweaky
Tweaky Posted September 9, 2022 Author Posted September 9, 2022 (edited) Well my 65" A95K finally hit what I consider enough bed-in time for the electronics and panel using the OOTB settings, I'd been holding off until this happened as there is less likelihood of any major changes of the settings drifting once inputted. So it was time to input the 20 point calibration settings I got from AVS forum member D-NICE, who was one of the Calibrators of the TV's used in the Value Electronics 2022 4K and 8K TV shootout. I mentioned above how some of the settings in the RTINGS calibration seem cautious compared to the ones supplied by D-NICE, and that some of his settings hit as high as -14. Well that was a bit of a understatement, some of his settings go WAY over that. The settings provided are very comprehensive, he supplied 4 different sets. One for SDR Night - room light controlled viewing One for SDR Daytime viewing One for HDR - which is pretty much identical to SDR Daytime apart for one setting One for Dolby Vision Dark - for watching Dolby Vision encoded 4K Discs =There is a option on the TV to switch between DV Dark or DV Bright. DV Dark is the most accurate, DV Bright gives you a brighter picture with more punch if you prefer that.....I prefer to watch a Movie as the director intended it to look, so DV-Dark for me. The OOTB settings on the A95K are very good, but only if you use the Custom preset with the Expert 2 colour Temp, this is if you want a natural looking picture, one that gets close to looking like a TV that has been calibrated. But having calibrated my previous TV's before, I knew what to look for, and after 3 weeks living with the OOTB settings knew the areas that could be improved. The best analogy I can think of is, you could liken watching the A95K using the best OOTB settings above, as having a picture that is a compressed version of what it is actually capable of, and believe me, you'd be missing out of a hell of a lot if you stayed using the OOTB. The other thing I should mention is, if you want to get the full impact of what this TV is capable of, and this applies with OOTB and after inputting calibration settings, treat it as you would if you were watching a movie via a projector, turn ALL the room lights out, and any in adjoining rooms that might be leaking into the room. The seemingly infinite contrast this TV produces really hits home when you do this. I had intended to take some pre and post calibration setting photos and post them, using a iphone 13 pro on a tripod with a Bluetooth remote, thinking it would be up to the task, it wasn't. I'd chosen selected pictures from the Spears & Musil Test disc to do it with, and had got to the stage were I had done a pre calibation set in SDR and another in HDR. When I looked at the pictures, it seems the TV produced so much light in the highlights on some shots, that it was too much for the iphones camera sensor, and they made the TV look like it was suffering Blooming, as you can get on a LED/LCD TV, where that wasn't the case at all, so the pictures are useless for the intended purpose unfortunately. The list of settings changes required for inputting them all D-NICE's calibration settings is long, there is 151 to check through for each one to be precise, which sounds like a nightmare, but was incredibly easy on the A95K as the menu system is a joy to use, and D-NICE had listed the settings in the order as you come across them in the menus. I think it took me 40 minutes to do them for all 4 calibrations. So what was the difference? It unleashed the beast that was hidden inside the A95K, I knew it was only using a fraction of it's potential with the OOTB settings, but I wasn't prepared for just how much of a difference D-NICE's setting made For a start it just opened everything up, the picture had far more dynamic range, there was far more detail in the highlights, and not just detail, you could now see incredibly subtle changes in colour that were not visible before, the sunset landscape shots with the low clouds from the test disc showed this off , so lifelike. The slight Red push the A95K can show had gone, the colour balance was a order of magnitude better across the board, and for the most part so was the Grey scale. If the is one slight niggle I have with the A95K it is in it's deepest Blacks, and I'm talking about from Black 0 IRE through to 5 IRE and touching onto 10 IRE, we are talking the REALLY Dark stuff, it just misses out on having the ultimate in separation down there, very close though. To put that into context, the vast majority of TV's don't even have controls that even allow calibration below 10 IRE, and you would need a high end spectro that cost you at least as twice as much as a 65" A95K to read and calibrate it anyway....I'm being very nit picky, put it that way. [You would need to download and install the Calman for Bravia App on the TV to get the 20 point white balance that allows you to calibrate down at 5 IRE, the default 10 point white balance starts at 10 IRE] It's only because of the absolutely amazing contrast levels, and the colour definition and graduation everywhere else on this TV is why I noticed it. I suspect the vast majority of people wouldn't notice it, let alone worry about. And this was just with SDR and HDR. I thought that it couldn't possibly get any better than what I was seeing, well I was wrong. When playing a 4K Dolby Vision encoded disc, and switching to the Dolby Vision Dark calibration, things just went to another level again. I have never, ever, seen a better picture on any TV, anywhere, than what my A95K was reproducing in my lounge room. The main area was in the highlights, what would normally appear as white or just below white, now showed to have colour in it, and I don't mean just one colour, there was shades of that colour with those highlights. It's something you have to experience first hand to appreciate, it really was a WOW! moment for me. Maybe I was lucky, and the calibrations I got from D-NICE just happened transfer well to my particular A95K, and my unit was very similar to the one he did his calibration on. That isn't always the case, as unit to unit variation is why it's not recommended to copy somebody else's calibration settings, they might not work on your TV. Then you have the fact that the A95K is a SONY Master Series TV, and part of the so called SONY TAX in this particular instance, has gone into SONY individually selecting panels for use in the A95K, and consequently unit to unit variation is going to be a lot less than usually encountered. I had a look at D-NICE's calibration report, he has got the calibration down so tight, that even if your TV did differ by a few points here and there from his A95K, his settings would still be a LOT better than the best OOTB settings. Just make sure you bed-in your TV for 150 to 200 hours use beforehand, that's not just a recommendation, I consider that mandatory if you want the best picture possible that doesn't drift out. D-NICE hasn't, as he usually does, posted his settings at the AVS forum for all to use.[ waiting for a apology about some AVS forum incident is the reason apparently] I had to email him a request for them, and I got sent them on the condition I not give them to anybody else, or post them anywhere on the internet. If I could, I would have posted them by now. If you own a A95K and find you can't get Tony O'Brien to calibrate if for you [Busy man] I think you owe it to yourself to try and get D-NICE's settings, as you certainly won't be getting the most out of your TV using the OOTB settings, you certainly won't regret it. You can kindly request them from him at the email address below. info@av-fi.com If you want to try the 10 point white calibration settings posted on RTINGS, I copied them down, and give them below, it will save you going through all the screen shots and doing it yourself.......They are very conservative settings, and TBH I think they will make a minimal difference, but should help get rid of the worse of the over abundant Red on the A95K. Just read the rest of what they have to say about the other settings you should use in the link. https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/a95k-oled/settings 10 Point White calibration Basic White settings. Advanced White Balance for 1 to 10 R Gain : Max 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 G- Gain : Max Red Offset -1 -4 -4 -5 -1 -1 0 -1 -1 0 B Gain : -4 Green Offset -2 -4 -4 -6 -1 0 1 0 0 0 R Bias : -2 Blue Offset -3 -5 -5 -5 0 -1 0 -1 -1 0 G Bias : 0 B Bias : 0 Per Colour Adjustment ---- they only made changes on two of the colours, the rest stay at 0 RED BLUE HUE 0 0 SAT -1 -1 Lightness 0 0 Edited September 9, 2022 by Tweaky 1
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