On Friday the boxes from CameraAddict.Com arrived at our doorstep around 4:30pm.  They arrived on time and in good condition.  Below are images of what we received.  In the end, everything was as requested.  I did not specifically ask for the US model of the Pioneer Elite VSX-91TXH AV and I believe I received a French import version.  The box had French wording all over it even though the equipment and manual is in English.  I could not tell if the projector was an import or if it truly was the US model.  I guess I will know when I file the included warranty cards and they are either accepted or denied.  In either case, I don't think this matters much.  I own a Pioneer VSX502 that I purchased in 1994 in Korea while I was stationed there.  This box has been shipped from Korea to Kentucky and then to New Hampshire and finally back to Kentucky and it's still in perfect working condition.  I therefore have every confidence that my new Pioneer will last quite a long time.  As for the Sony warranty, I am not sure that I would be better off with Sony's warranty service versus the extended warranty from CameraAddict.Com.  Both seem less than ideal so in a weird way my warranty fears have been put to rest in accepting that I am pretty much on my own when it comes to repairs for the equipment.

Boxes as shipped: Pioneer box:
Sony box: Warranty Card:

As you can see, everything arrived in pretty good shape.  Next up was mounting everything and connecting all the components so that I could test drive the entire system.  Many people on the web reported that CameraAddict.Com didn't ship a lens with their camera or a bulb with their projector and charged them more when they requested these items.  This was not the case with our shipment.  The AV worked flawlessly out of the box and the projector had the bulb in it.   After a few hours of setup, our theater was up and running.

In the above picture you can see the Black Pearl installed, wired and ready to go.

This is what the screen wall looks like with everything completed and the front speakers in place.  and finally, below is a view of the seating area.  We used this project as an excuse to recycle our upstairs living room furniture in order to buy a new look for our living room and it worked out great.  The couches we had previously are still in pretty good shape and have always been comfortable to watch TV from so we figured why not just use those instead of paying $300 and $400 a chair for custom theater seats.

Around 10:30 Friday evening, I had everything up and running and turned it on for the first time.  Out of the box, the picture is amazing.  I am stunned by the picture quality and I haven't modified a single setting.  Over the next week I will get into the Tweaks thread over at AVS Forum and see if I can improve the already amazing picture quality.  Unfortunately, my digital camera doesn't have a fast enough shutter speed to be able to take the picture without mounting the camera on a tripod or something much more steady than my hand.  I'll solve this and get screenshots up as soon as possible.  The first movie I watched was 300.  Good movie, amazing soundtrack, awesome video presentation.  There were times during the scenes of the wheat fields where I felt like the image was 3D. 

In the end, CameraAddict.Com had some pretty poor customer service but they delivered the equipment and it all worked.  To top it off, the price I paid was pretty hard to beat.  I can't help but think that if I didn't get the pants scared off me from reviews on web sites that I would have thought much higher of the service.  One of the rules of online communities is that the only people to post on many of them are those that have a problem.  No one takes teh time to log on to a forum to tell the world they had an expected experience.  Even this blog would have had half as many posts if the service was better so I'm not exempt from that sort of self serving behavior.  While its good to read the feedback, I think one has to take it with a grain of salt and still arrive at their own decision.  Will I do business with CameraAddict.Com again?  Doubt it, but was it a Bait-and-Switch-Sacrifice-Babies-and-Dolphins kind of company that the web made it out to be?  Nope.  All I can hope for is that people that read this blog will use the information within it to make a decision for themselves when it comes to using them.  In any case, I am enjoying a fantastic new projector and a pretty kick ass new audio video receiver.  HD has never been so good.

Pictures of the image quality coming soon.  :)  I'm off to watch some 110" HDTV. 

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