I used to work in warranty service that was contracted for a number of
different manufacture sets. I was servicing mainly the Sony sets.

Sony makes a very high end line of broadcast production TV monitors,
cameras, and video taping machines. Their quality level in these lines
is outstanding.

In their TV lines, they took some of the phelosophy for their design.
Naturaly, you would not be able to have an affordable home TV set, if
they used the same exact desing as in their professional equipment.
But, their phelosophy of design is there.

Their TV sets are very dependable, and do have good performance. Like
anything else, I would suggest to take an extended warranty with the
set. Make sure that the CRT is covered in the warranty. The CRT being a
tube, can be undependable as far as its life span is conserned.

If all goes well, the MTBF of their CRT is about 30,000 hours. This is
very much an industry standard. This means that if used with maximum
contrast, its emission would be 50% down after 30,000 hours. If you
decrease the contrast to about 50% to 70% of its maximum range, the
lifespan of the CRT may be increased by about 30%.

As for myself, I have a preference for Sony TV sets, especialy in their
CRT, and LCD screens. In the plasma screens, I have a preference for
the Panasonic.

I am not in any way selling TV products, or have anything to gain by
being biased. What I am indicating is from my own observation.