Considering I got this at a yard sale for $150 in perfect condition I say I lucked out! This TV is awesome the picture comes in so clear the built in speakers arnt bad at all and its got its basic inputs outputs.Its a massive tv I had to carry this thing by myself from the truck to the house and it was a MISTAKE haha this tv is huge.If your going to buy one use 2 people for sure.Also this TV seems to give off an optical illusion the screen seems MUCH bigger than it is.I've had three people ask me if it was between a 42" and a 48''.Even when I was buyig it I thought it was a 42'' or bigger if you are looking to buy this tv then do it its amazing and if you get it for what I payed then well...you WIN!

Price and Picture

Cabinet could be a bit more of a dark or neutral gray

The 36A42 is an excellent choice for anyone looking for a very accurate television. It also happens to be a great bargain as well. I looked at all the current options in HDTVs and EDTVs and could not find anything truly worth the price. I was not a fan of the non-uniformed picture of the RPTVs and Plasma is not a great videophile pick do to it’s inherent black problems. And HD tubes seem a bit much provided the cost on the showroom floor is before you get an HD tuner, DVHS, or HD satellite service and the same goes for front projection. Which brought me right back to good old-fashioned analog tube televisions. It is always very hard to compare color rendition in a showroom if you are trying to do a side-by-side comparison. But what I was able to compare was the comb filtering of the sets I was comparing. The Toshiba did an unbelievable job with the signals in the store. Which is good for those watching cable (because we all know that ‘digital’ cable still has some improvement to make). While in the store I tried to get the sets I was considering calibrated at least to a point where the image was believable. Every time the Toshiba came out looking the best. Good blacks, great contrast and color rendition (at least as much as I could tell in the store). This was impressive for a showroom for sure. Just to be able to say I had done my homework I checked out consumer reports to see how the sets held up. In the 36” class the Toshiba got rated the best for repair record. As for picture quality, consumer reports even chose the Toshiba 36A42 as an outstanding buy whose picture rivaled the Sony KV-36FV300 which goes for $1300 or so. The curved front screen was not remotely a problem in my theater because the light conditions are very controlled and the viewing angles are all small. All these things convinced to me to go forward with the purchase. I got it home and set it up. I put in Joe Kane’s Video Essentials and within 2 hours I had an absolutely gorgeous image. Cable is very nice on it and DVDs are just great. Even the discs like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are still plenty big enough and so great to watch on such an accurate set. I can honestly recommend this set to anyone. Even when I make the jump into HD in the next few years I am sure this set will still be great to use in a secondary theater setup.