Our not-so-trusty Panasonic PT-52DL52 is flickering more and more every day (we are not alone in this), and it’s getting to the point that I’m giving serious thought to replacing the set (though I’ll call Magnolia Hi-Fi first — that’s where I bought it, and they fixed it the last time we had problems, at a reasonable price).

I don’t want to buy another DLP set (I can see the rainbows at times), and I don’t want to buy a Sony. We still watch enough 4:3 material that burn-in might be a problem on a plasma.

Any suggestions? Any recent experience to share?

[updated:  I don’t want to go any smaller than the 52″ set we have now, and probably nothing over 56″ would fit.]

As promised, XM’s 60’s on 6 did an all-afternoon “Sonic Sound Salute” to the late, lamented WLEE/1480 today. I grew up with WLEE, so I wanted to be sure to hear as much of the show as possible; I even figured out how to record from DirecTV to my DVD burner, something I hadn’t done since the end of Enterprise Season Three.

I did get one thing wrong: the start time. The show started at 1pm Pacific; I thought it was 2pm. But I tuned in on my way back to work and only missed a few minutes.

XM’s DJ, Terry Young, had actually worked at WLEE from 1973-1977, so he was spot on with the local color, knowing how to pronounce all of the local businesses’ names correctly, as well as getting all of the high schools’ nicknames right. On the other hand, I don’t think all of the jingles were authentic WLEE jingles, at least not from the ’60s — and they never referred to themselves as “148”…always “1480”. I’m also a little dubious about the voice of Shane; I remember it as being deep, full and rich, not strained.  [ahh, I listened to a bit more, and Terry admitted to mimicing Shane.]

But despite the little glitches, it was great to hear Big ‘Lee again!