I would be cautious purchasing a projector that old with already known issues. I did a quick search on ebay and there are some JVC units in the 500 price range with lower hours on them and the option to purchase a square trade warranty. I have bought and sold used projectors without issue but they were all much newer and in proper working order. Do you know if the lens is centered? If the horizontal shift failed while it was outside its center point you could run into issues getting the image to properly fit your screen if your not lined up correctly. I would suggest checking out a few option on ebay and in the AV forums first.
What think about jvc x500 eshift 3 . 180 hrs on bulb with 1 year warranty 1100$
Good price. I just sold an X500 for $1050, but mine obviously came with no warranty. Much better than the RS35 overall.
Darn! I missed out on a very well calibrated dark environment projector. I thought you were keeping it as a backup for your RS2000. I expect your RS2000 will become a backup for your RS3000 some day!
I sold both backups haha. They just sit here, so no sense in keeping something actually worth money still. I shipped the RS2000 to a fellow reviewer who bought it last week. I just picked up a used Runco VX-11D for $150 this morning on eBay. Crazy good price for a 1080p 3 chip DLP. It's missing it's VIVIX controller, but I can still control it with a simple USB to RS232 cable until I see a used controller pop up on eBay. That'll be my new backup
Small world. Just met Rob, the thread starter, for an in person pickup of my X500. We had a nice chat about projectors for a bit before he drove home.
You sold your RS2000?! Did I miss something? What's your main projector now?
JVC DLA-NX9 (RS3000)I ended up keeping my review unit. I just couldn't let it go back to JVC. It's too nice.
It might be worth hearing about the sort of room it will be going in (lighting and size) and how it will be used before anyone can say it's a good idea to buy a particular projector. I.e. Screen size and content. It can feel like a JVC Dila is the only answer on forums these days but it isn't. I've owned a few JVCs myself including an HD990 (which is an RS35 rebadged). They are usually very nice for the price if you have the right sort of room. I found all of my HT class JVC projectors hard to live with when I used them in a living room environment. They are most at home in a blacked out dedicated home theater imo. $500 would be a good deal on an RS35 if it was in perfect working order + low hours. I couldn't live without horizontal lens shift though. If it's low hours and still broken, it was a dog to start with. Avoid. I actually rate the RS35 I owned above a bunch of the newer JVC projectors despite the inflated contrast ratio specs on some later ones. The RS35 was a $10,000 rrp projector when new because JVC hand-picked the cream of the crop in components. Just doing that produced a very noticeable improvement over the RS25 despite the identical component list. My experience has been that a top of the line projector from 5 or 8 years ago is usually better than entry-level projectors of today. The fundamentals of a great image like high quality glass and components has not changed or got any cheaper. If you are buying a used projector (which I think is smart) it's always worth seeing what else you could get within your budget too. Sometimes that $1000-$5000 you would have spent on a new entry level projector can get you an $80,000 3chip DLP with a high end lens that would have cost $8000 when new... I've had some incredible deals.