I would LOVE to know what you did. I actually just PM'd a guy I saw that also had a VT60, so I'm going to paste what I wrote him and hope it helps in this discussion.
I went with the hype and ordered a 65" CX and it arrived last Friday. I'm coming from a Panny ZT60 - perhaps with the Pioneer Elite one of the better TVs made in terms of ability to derive an accurate picture, for 1080p. I spent the time and money to get that TV perfectly calibrated to my room.
I tried for hours setting up the CX on Saturday and again on Sunday. I also ran a calibration UHD blu ray. Normally, I go through each stage, making sure to meet each criteria, knowing at the very end I'll need to make minute adjustments just to go from "calibrated" to my own preference. I turned off all automatic nonsense on the TV and honestly, I couldn't perfectly calibrate any one step. The black gradient step was absolutely hopeless. Then I tried something called ISF as a mode (which I normally never do), and it was no better. Incredibly disappointed for TV that apparently gets such amazing reviews. Is everyone just concerned about how black "black" can be? There's so much more to it than that! The contrast out of the box was extremely impressive but still couldn't be made "right" in terms of calibration. I know calibration seeks to average out events for all viewing, but since I do view multiple types of events, I find that it's the best route for me.
Overall my findings were: blacks were much "blacker" than my Panny but the "black crush" was too noticeable for me with extremely poor gradients between blacks. To run the comparison, I tried watching the scene from Godfather with Marlon Brando sitting at his desk. It's a dark room and he's in a dark suit - it's an incredible shot that pushes displays. Then I looked at that scene on my ZT60. Yes the black is blacker on the LG, but the gradients of black are atrocious on the CX. On the plasma, you see multiple layers of black/dark gray, dray, light black, darker black as he or others move in and out of the shadows. The extra detail was night and day...no pun intended.
This made no sense to me but then going back and being careful about reading reviews, whilst I saw references to "deep blacks" I found only a couple of reviews that discuss the gradients of blacks. Further research revealed that while LG makes the OLED panels for both Sony and Panasonic, the latter MIGHT implement it better due to less restrictions on their budgets as their buyers are willing to pay a few more dollars. The biggest problem is comparing these things. Looking at them in a brightly lit Best Buy is simply nothing like it will be at your home.
As you probably know, Panasonic make the most out of those panels and sell the best OLED TVs. They're used in Hollywood, London and Mumbai to check UHD blu-ray demo productions to reference standard data streams from the sets. Problem - I knew they didn't sell those in the USA, and I live in Houston. I thought they sold them in Canada and was willing to fly there, pick one up and drive it home. New problem - Panasonic pulled completely out of North America in 2020. They just can't sell their TVs for the prices they need to charge. In a similar way to how plasma died for Samsung and Panasonic, there's not enough margin there unless you skimp on everything after the panel. I've been trading emails all morning with Canadian electronics suppliers who are gutted and I've since learned that when there was a a buyer that was willing to spend the dough and they actually saw the panels next to each other, nobody chose the LG CX over the Panny. Some chose to go in the middle and pick up the Sony. Others chose to save the $$ and go with the LG and why not - they might or might not see a difference and decide their hard-earned money is better spent elsewhere.
I relayed my testing/setup experience with them and, universally, they agreed that they've heard about this black gradient problem with LG, BUT it's also a slight problem on the Panny and Sony. A couple said its pervasive with OLEDs but the tradeoff with deep black and slight black crush wasn't as big with Panasonic and Sony ran a close second. Therefore, I'm going to try the A9G. I don't love that it doesn't have HDMI 2.1 (wtf?) but I need a TV as my plasma dies a noble death.
This is a very personal choice, but I'm just letting you know what I learned over the last 80 hours or so.
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