Faulty KDL55HX923

[Anonymous]

Appreciate your involvment Andy!

Been watching the set tonight and am beginning to feel like a right moaner as it looks superb BUT that's the damn internet for ya.

so many other UK owners returning sets, getting refunds you start to second guess yourself and think "am I a mug for paying out nearly 3000GBP for this and its basically got a design flaw"

the answer you usually come back to is yes. The Sony dealer are also pushing sony for a statement so that I can make a decision one way or the other. If for example Sony said "ok we'll sort it, modified sets available in a month, or two" then i'd be happy to wait and hang on to existing unit under the promise they'd swap it out immediately a modded one was in the UK, no problem.

Sadly noone seems willing to say yeigh or neigh so are you glass half empty or glass half full? the cynic in me is starting to think Sony know what the issue is (they've basically said as much) but have possibly come to the conclusion they'll ride it out and just try harder with next years flagship set.

Honestly if that is their answer that is also fine, no hard feelings Sony, I still like the brand but at least then I can make an informed decision and just send it back for a full refund and then its back to the drawing board for a new TV

Looking forward to any input you can gain....also be really keen to see What HiFi get a 55" HX923 in...you can come borrow mine if you like!!! to see what you make of it. If you beleive the US forums Sony US have apparently told customers the issue is caused by the adhesive on the glass not curing correctly....Sony UK have not denied that but have basically said on their public forum that that is accurate and sony manufacturing is classing it as an "edge artefact" which sounds like code for "defect we cannot be bothered to fix"

 

[Anonymous]

@southern

It sounds like your thinking is exactly like mine if you've seen my recent post on the Sony forum and elsewhere.

Surely Sony can't avoid the situation forvever and need to provide some form of public response, even if just via someone like WHF.

"defect we cannot be bothered to fix" is probably pretty much on the money

 

[Anonymous]

well here's hoping the thought of a mini-what hifi feature on this PR disaster is enough of a prompt to get a response. hopefully Andy can sort that out !!!

 

[andy_s]

I have to agree with southernsmoggy in every way, Sony clearly are now trying to sweep this under the carpet, they did however say that the problem was down to a few isolated sets originally and were agreeing replacements, now they are realising the problem is more commonplace and affected more sets both 46" and 55" alike in europe and across the pond this has natuarally spun them into a panic, hence the new label "edge artifact", this is unacceptable and is Sony just looking for a way out!,

i have also spoken to Sony directly and gave them my views on this Adhesive issue which they have forwarded to their tech guys with interest however to impliment it now may be a little late in the game, in my view they'll dismiss on this years current model and impliment it on next years.

i do hope this will not be the case and i hope Sony will understand the importance of putting right their mistakes, they must realise by now its in their best interest to do so.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi As I was the one who originally started this thread I thought I'd give you an update. I have since received two replacements. The first one via the shop had the creases on both sides - a bit worse than the first one. Sony then by this time had taken notice - they never contacted me via What Hi Fi but instead via a response through their website. They said that it was down to a few sets and said they would swap sets out directly. They then started to say that it may in fact be down to edge artefacts. I got my third set via Sony directly - these had seemingly been checked by Sony. I have tried to call them but the contact is out. The new set has little or no crease down the left hand side but has a bad crease down the right hand side. Question is why does it have a crease on one side and not the other. This would tend to suggest that there is a manufacturing fault and that they have not managed to correctly put the TVs together in a consistent manner. For a flagship TV costing around £3,000 on their website I would expect much better than this and not have a problem like glue to be causing such an issue. All advice would be accepted but I would be grateful if Clare or Andy or someone at What Hi Fi could chase Sony for a definitive answer on this.

 

[Anonymous]

i am going to try another replacment, not holding out much hope but the dealer has been excellent so i'll let them try once more. its no real hassle to me as the sony dealer is going to bring the set round and set up side by side with the existing unit. if they are both the same then they are happy to refund my money.

i'd love to know what the sony dealers feel about this when not in front of customers this must be seriously wasting a lot of their time and resources. in this slow trading times they probably cannot believe a premium product (with probably a premium margin) has turned out this way....if i was a sony dealer i'd feel pretty let down by sony.

as an end customer i obviously do feel let down but at least if all else fails i can get my money back and go elsewhere but the dealers are stuck with a model range of TV's that are receiving a universal panning from customers.....lets face it the defacto way to buy expensive consumer purchases today is to "google it" first.....anyone looking at these TV's will easily find the various forum posts.

be very very interested to hear if the What HiFi team can get Sony to make any kind of statement, i'd also love to see the What HiFi team re-test the hx923, specifically the 55" to see what they feel about the issues.

 

[Clare Newsome]

be very very interested to hear if the What HiFi team can get Sony to make any kind of statement, i'd also love to see the What HiFi team re-test the hx923, specifically the 55" to see what they feel about the issues.

As Andy notes above, we're being persistent. And yes, we're planning to test the 55in version, as well as looking at additional 46in versions. We will, of course, report any problems (just as we did with backlight bleed issues on earlier-generations Sonys: again, like this apparent new issue, there's no consistency on whether/how each set is affected)

 

[andy_s]

southernsmoggy,

i can see your not giving up yet! lol, personally and this may make no difference going by what Sony say, is i would hold out for the August batch and see if anything changes it seems at the moment everyone is getting replacements from the same June batch which is half the trouble with this at the moment!,

good on you for giving it another go.

catch ya later!!

 

[Anonymous]

as the old saying goes...."in for a penny in for a pound...."

.....ok 3000 GBP in this case :boohoo:

from what sony support are saying they don't expect the august batch to have been built any differently at all they'll just have gone through additional QA checks to weed out the really bad ones....which kind of implies logically the just "bad" or "not too bad" ones are boxed up and shipped out....i've definitely got a "not too bad" one....but is "not too bad" good enough at this price? if i wanted that i'd have just gone to Tesco and spent 500 GBP on a set

 

[Anonymous]

good on you clare for keep this going with Sony!

i recall a while back What HiFi re-reviewed its 5 star standing on the samsung d8000 as the d7000 ran it so close it made the d8000 look over priced.

....i'm still a sony fan but even i feel that maybe what hifi (to make sony PR/marketing take notice) could do with a re-review and downgrade of your 5 start rating on the HX923 given the massive amount of unhappy customers (see this forum / sonys forum and the avforum site) as a long term what hifi reader i don't feel your recent review refelects market reality....i do base a lot of my buying decisions or certainly base my product selection/narrowing down on your reviews and right now due to the issues out here in customer land no matter how good your review set it doesn't deserve the 5 stars any more sadly.

 

[andy_s]

Indeed!, but if one is going to spend top dollar then really you should expect nothin less than top product, its not good enough to expect people to pay a high end price for a Tesco quality telly!!,

oh, having said that, tesco telly's are probably better at the moment!.

 

[Clare Newsome]

good on you clare for keep this going with Sony!

i recall a while back What HiFi re-reviewed its 5 star standing on the samsung d8000 as the d7000 ran it so close it made the d8000 look over priced.

....i'm still a sony fan but even i feel that maybe what hifi (to make sony PR/marketing take notice) could do with a re-review and downgrade of your 5 start rating on the HX923 given the massive amount of unhappy customers (see this forum / sonys forum and the avforum site) as a long term what hifi reader i don't feel your recent review refelects market reality....i do base a lot of my buying decisions or certainly base my product selection/narrowing down on your reviews and right now due to the issues out here in customer land no matter how good your review set it doesn't deserve the 5 stars any more sadly.

We do indeed review our ratings on a regular basis. We can't - obviously - amend our review to say we saw things we didn't; we can only report our own findings.They can/may change if we see any sign of defects on future Sony sets from this range (at any size).

However - and again, we've done this before - in the meantime, when it goes online we can flag up on the review that there are some reports of problems, plus link from the review to this thread. In that way any potential purchaser will be aware of the situation. The review is due online shortly - we'll make sure those amends are made, and that Sony are aware of them.

EDIT - We've decided not to put our review online until we get an official response from Sony. In the meantime, this thread will, of course, continue. Keep any feedback/info coming.

 

[Andy Clough]

To add to Clare's comments, I had an email from Sony's UK PR company today saying "we are dealing with your request and will be in touch shortly".

As soon as I have that response I'll post it here, and link to the review when it's online.

 

[Anonymous]

excellent reply i bet you loved that one! :rofl:

 

[andy_s]

Andy,

that amounts to the same as "were busy burying our heads in the sand", does'nt it!!!

 

[zameerisgreat]

Clare, has the team reviewed the 55Hx925 for the September issue ?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Andy and Clare,

As an avid magazine and site reader, I registered to tell you how much we in Sweden appreciate your efforts for getting in touch with Sony regarding this "crease" issue.

I don't wear hats, but hats off to you nonetheless Sir and Madam.

Regards,

A disappointed buyer who was planning to enjoy their TV over the holidays

 

[Clare Newsome]

Clare, has the team reviewed the 55Hx925 for the September issue ?

Nope. We've got a review of two smaller Sony sets in the next issue (on sale next week; sent off to subscribers today) - Sony KDL-26EX320 and Sony KDL-40EX524. In terms of larger/premium sets, we've got a review of the Panasonic TX-P65VT30 in our Ultimate Guide to High End, which comes free with UK print edition and to subscribers.

Can't see the big Sony on the list for October issue (which despite the date is on sale in late August!), though we have got the Samsung UE55D8000 in for review for that edition already - should make an interesting head to head with the 55in Sony when we get it.

 

[Anonymous]

yep the UE55D8000 was on my shopping list before the 55HX923 but the owners thread for that set is even more of a collection of tales of woe than the sony thread. over on avforums.com the d8000 thread is 422 replies long and has had nearly 28000 views.

anyway all the stories and pictures of horrible clouding and banding(not to mention light leaks) put me right off that set.

maybe in your review you should do an anlysis of each model, see if you can extract from the suppliers how many they sold of each and then what %age were sent back!

 

[Andy Clough]

Right, it being 5.25pm on a Friday, I've finally had a response from Sony.

Their UK spokesperson says: "A small number of sets are affected, but it's not a broader product issue. If you think you have an affected set, please call the Sony customer services helpline on 0844 846 6555." They will discuss the issue with you and (hopefully) offer a solution.

 

[andy_s]

Hi Andy,

gosh we know all that already!, they not saying much at all are they, i know they have engineers from 3 different countrys looking into this at the moment, my suggestion for the Adhesive fix taken on board, but dont know at this point if its the way forward for a fix or not.

Andy

 

[Anonymous]

Given what you've seen and heard so far does this sound like a satisfactory response. Some buyers have had three sets so far all with the same problem. Are they really really unlucky or is it a bigger problem than they are willing to let on about. The dealers and others think it's a defect in the process and some TVs only have a problem on one side so how can they continue with this stance?

 

[andy_s]

Sony originally thought (and still do) that this has happened to a select few, i firmly believe as do many others (check the Sony forums as well) that its more widespread than they would have liked, people that have exchanged their sets already will still end up with the same issue as nothing has changed yet,

what we are all waiting on is to see if they change the bonding process, then things should start looking up.

 

[Anonymous]

Sony have said that the issue has been identified as an adhesive curing rate problem between the polarizer and the glass and that through research they have identified sets manufactured after June 15th as being fixed. Issue is that the sets are still the same - they do not seem to have changed anything. All they have done is do some quality checks.

So was it a curing rate problem and if so have they changed the process?

Have they fixed the sets?

 

[andy_s]

this mis-conception about june 15th has nothing to do with sets after that date being fixed, the original post about that was to say that not all sets were affected before that date.

as of yet nothing has changed and the investigation is still on going.

indeed it is believed by Sony to be a curing rate problem, and in my view would not have been a problem at all if they stuck the glue in the right place!, and no so far the process has not changed.

and no they have not fixed the sets.