FRED MANTEGHIAN BLOG

The consumer electronics industry has done a pretty lousy job of educating everyone on new audio and video technology. And by "industry," I mean manufacturers, their marketing arms, and even journalists, though none at UltimateAV. Start with your newspapers of record. Michael Fremer has palpitations reading the New York Times audio / video coverage (I get the same effect from their Op-ed page!).

The Saturday before New Years day, Gina and I were in Macy's returning this year's sorry attempt at her finding a sweater that a) fits and b) I'll wear. But I don't blame her. Weight-wise, I'm a moving target. The salesman I've gone to for years, let's call him Bill, is ringing me up and out of the blue the subject gets to home theater (funny how that happens around me).

Bill, an older gentlemen who never married, lives with his mother and this Christmas, they bought a new TV.

"One of those flat panel ones," he mentions quietly for fear management might overhear and cut his pay.

"Plasma or LCD?" – I was whispering too, so he didn't catch the little sneer in my voice when I got to "LCD."

"Oh, the 2nd one. Yes, I heard the Plasma kind have problems."

I think about reaching into my wallet, giving him my business card and asking him to check out my blog where "Plasma: Urban Legends Debunked " played out earlier this year. Surely he was given the standard "burn in" line by a salesman who ran out of plasmas on Tuesday and didn't want Bill and his mother to leave without buying something from him. Or maybe a friend thinks the LCDs are better because they only use 1/10th the electricity of a plasma (they don't – it's pretty close).

But I had to ask.

"So what didn't you like about the plasma?"

"Oh," he started. "After a year or two, they start getting dark and you have to replace a bulb or something in there."

No response.

"It's a couple hundred bucks," he adds.

Bill held up the new winter top coat he'd just fitted while I stood there dumbstruck and asked, "So, when did you want to pick this up?"