Good sound & color but Very Poor contrast/black levels

I went to the store originally intending to buy the Toshiba 27A43/44 but found that it's picture was much noisier in the blacks then any other sets that were getting the same cable feed. No sales person could explain this and playing with detail levels and every other picture related control including checking the RF connection made any difference.

I remembered reading in Consumer Reports that the Panasonic CT-27SL13 was highly rated along with several other competing brands so I bought it ($359). Where I failed in my viewing research was that I never check out the Panasonic's black level or contrast/picture controls. While white levels are bright and have very good white balance, the blacks are crushed-meaning they are BLACK. Almost impossible to adjust the set and have any dark details come through. Gamma or grey scale levels are very narrow with this set. I tried many different signals types but noticed no difference-whites are very white and blacks are extremely black. The "brightness" and "picture" controls do not overcome this unaceptable characteristic.

Very dissapointing since I had high hopes for the set, liked the physicall appearance of it along with sound and color saturation along with color phase were very good. Remote was straightforward.

Bottom line: Took the set back and will look again at Sony, JVC and Toshiba. Hopefully one of those sets will have better black level/contrast control.