Epson Home Cinema LS11000 4K Laser Projector

I have now owned all three projectors used with a 150 inch screen. I started out with the Viewsonic DLP 4k projector for around $900. The daytime scenes were bright and sharp but the dark scenes were terrible. almost unwatchable as people’s faces were so dark i couldn’t see their facial expressions. I found myself constantly changing the settings so i could see the dark scenes only to undo it as soon as a bright scene came on as the brightness would wash out the picture. Then i started seeing the rainbow affect so i knew i had to move to an lcd projector. I purchased the Epson 3800 for $1700. As soon as i tuned on the first movie i could immediately see the difference. The Viewsonic was shipped back the next day. I liked the picture from the 3800 but saw one big problem. the dark scenes were dark and the faces were still too dark. when i adjusted the hdr settings, the bright scenes were once again washed out. It was much better than the Viewsonic’s picture, but i was still messing with the settings for every movie while i was watching the movie. my wife would yell at me to quit so she could watch the movie. i didnt want to spend the money but i wanted to see what the 5050ub could do. Most of the reviews had it rated as one of the best projectors for the money. I ordered the projector and when it arrived, i told my wife it would probably go back to amazon because the 3800 had such a good bright picture. After comparing projectors my wife came in and started watching. i switched out the projectors a few times with her watching and she immediately said, i like this picture much better. i said, that’s the new projector and it’s 1k more. she said, i don’t care, the picture is worth it. so i kept the 5050ub and sent the 3800 back. Is the 5050ub much better than the 3800? yes, the contrast is NOTICABLY better. no more washed out picture… ever. I convinced myself i was happy… except on a 150 inch screen, sitting 12ft away i could see the pixels. so then i see that epson has a new projector that shifts the pixels 4 times instead of 2. I decide to take the pepsi challenge and try this projector out. After waiting 3 weeks i finally get it in. Once again i told my wife that we’d probably keep the 5050ub because i was so happy with the picture and a lot of the reviews had the 5050ub with better contrast levels than the ls11000. My wife was ok with this as she didn’t want to spend 4k on a projector. Actually she didn’t want to spend the 3k on the 5050 so i think she was hoping this projector went back to amazon at the end of the weekend. I turned on the projector (plugged in to apple tv) and immediately i could see that the colors were much deeper with less white shinning through. this was just looking at the menu, i hadn’t even started a movie yet. However, once I started watching a movie I was very disappointed. The picture was not as good as the 5050ub’s picture. I switched back and forth about 20 times in different movies but the picture was always better on the 5050ub. I was just about to package the ls11000 to send back when i thought, i wonder if the apple settings were messed up. i checked the apple settings and saw that the chroma settings where not at the highest level. I changed the chroma settings to the highest settings and started boxing the 5050ub. the picture was like looking at a 150 inch 4k TV. The colors were incredible. Nothing is washed out. I cant see the pixels from the couch. the blacks are insanely black. I watched the series Wednesday on Netflix with my daughter and it was like watching a monster HDTV. Also, i do not have a sound system. which is a huge problem with the 5050ub. You need a sound system because there is no aux output, no fiber output and no ARC. I had to use bluetooth from the apple tv which made the lips out of sync. The LS11000 has ARC/EARC. I plug the 2nd hdmi cable into my sound bar and get dolby atmos audio. this is a huge deal if you don’t want to spend the money on a big audio system.
So is the ls11000 the best projector? yes, it has the best picture and it has ARC inputs. is it worth the extra 1k over the 5050ub? i would say that depends on your screen size, how close you sit to the screen and if you have an audio system. The bigger screen size will definitely appreciate the extra pixels and if you dont have a large audio system, the ARC/EARC on the projector would definitely be a must have to connect to a speaker bar. but at the end of the day one thing still remains. Garbage in is garbage out. If you source video is bad, the 11000 will amplify that more than the 5050 will. if you have access to 4k material, you will see a great picture, but watching old material sometimes looked better on the 5050.

The image is amazing! I haven’t even used all the modes yet. My 5050UB crapped out after 4.5 years because it had an auto iris/cinema filter error and now it just starts up like normal and then shuts down right away. It’s a common issue with their projectors – very. Having said that, the picture on this one is AMAZING. It’s better than my 5050UB lamp based projector was! Beware that these newer models do NOT have a 3D mode like the 5050UB. Despite their shortcomings, these are solid machines and have the MOST versatile installation options due to the motorized lens shift. There is none better for this price point. It also has high lumens so you can use it in very bright places that don’t have good control of ambient light. It has lumens on paper than the 5050UB but I SWEAR it’s brighter! Super quiet compared to the last one, too! For all of you experienced in home theaters, unless you have a dedicated room, it’s not worth it to spend $1k more for the LS12000. You get a nominal amount of extra lumens and features and it’s a special order item still. You either have to order directly from Epson or contact a theater installer. Save your $ and get this one! All in all it’s a good buy and you will love it. It’s worth it.