SIM2 is not a well-known brand among projectors, unlike Panasonic, Epson, Optoma, etc. but I guess you could look at it like the Ferrari of projectors. It's an elite brand which has been at the cutting-edge of projector technology for a long time. One of their innovative products was the Mico 50, which was among the first LED projectors to be sold to the consumer market.
One of the main selling points of the Mico 50 has been that it does not have a lamp. For those who are familiar with projectors, that is quite a big convenience (as well as savings). As lamps are used, their quality deteriorates. Not only do they become more dim, their overall image quality gets worse. In the first 500 hours of use, projector lamps usually lose about 50% of their brightness level. Picture quality deteriorates and even if you had a perfect video calibration at the start, you will need a new one. Some videophiles redo their calibration after every 100 hours of lamp usage. This is one of the features that attracted me most to the Mico -- a stable image which does not need constant re-calibration over time.
The projector is huge, similar in size to the older and huge CRT projectors. It weighs 55 pounds and you need a very strong mount. Fortunately, my main mount used to carry a CRT projector so it is quite capable. AV Driver, the supplier of the projector, provided a custom-made bracket that they bolted to the main mount. Installation literally took 15 minutes.
Similar to other SIM2 products (and a lot of Italian products), the projector is aesthetically beautiful, with a gun-metal finish. If you look at it, it looks like it is equal to its price. It's like looking at a Ferrari.
One of the things which will stun you is the time it takes to switch on and off. Switching on takes about 10 seconds while switching off takes around 3 seconds. Normal projectors may take a few minutes. Also, since there is no lamp, you don't need to worry about reducing lamp life through frequent switching on and off. You can switch it off and in a few seconds, switch it on again without worry. That's not true for other projectors. It takes time for them to cool down when you switch them off and lamp life is reduced as you frequently switch them off.
The projector has a built-in 2-point RGB adjustment for white balance, similar to other projectors. It was at first disappointing that the projector did not have a 10-point RGB adjustment, though I have a DVDO Duo Video Processor connected to the projector and this does have the 10-point adjustment. John, the AVDI tech, and I adjusted the white balance at the projector and to our surprise, all we needed was to adjust one point, not even 2, and both white balance and gamma were so good that we didn't need to do any further adjustment with the DVDO video processor. I have calibrated a lot of projectors and sometimes, it is easy to calibrate the white balance (which is the balanced mix of red, green and blue) but then it will be a torture to adjust gamma (which is the proper shading of the image from darkest to lightest, so that shadows are properly captured and have a smooth gradation, thus providing the illusion of a 3-dimensional image). Some of the most notorious for gamma calibration are the Panasonic projectors, which have a 10-point adjustment but they are so difficult to calibrate that it takes me 2 hours or more. With the Mico, when the white balance was done, the gamma was perfect.
Color calibration (Hue, Saturation and Luminance) was a little more involved and it took us maybe 1.5 hours, but that was mainly because we were not familiar with the projector calibration features. At the end, we did get the color calibration perfect and it is, in fact, the most perfect color calibration I have seen. Most projectors will have a problem with a few colors and you will be unable to calibrate them properly. That's just the limitation of most projectors. The Mico was perfect.
Picture quality is quite stunning. Many modern projectors have deep blacks and high contrast ratio and the Mico has these qualities as well but what it beats others is in color accuracy and sharpness. In most well-calibrated projectors, you sometimes get stunned by the realism of an image and this invariably is a facial close-up where you can see the pores, hair strands, skin blemishes, etc. With the Mico, this is the first time I see this stunning realism in half-body and even full-body images. People come alive.
The Celine Dion show in Las Vegas is among the best tests for projectors and the Mico produced an image which was incredibly beautiful. Skin tones are so realistic and the many colorful costumes and sets somehow come alive too. Motion flow was no problem, it was very smooth too.
In short, the Mico produces a picture quality which is among the best I have ever seen. Probably the only one that is better was the Sim2 Lumis that I saw in HK, projecting to a huge screen which may have been 14 to 15 feet wide.
Originally, I had been thinking of getting the new Sony VPL-VW 1000 projector, which has 4k. After reading a lot of reviews and following the threads at AVS Forum, I decided not to buy it, mainly because of the view that you can only appreciate 4k if you sit really close to the screen. Mahihilo ako.
Thus, my attention went to the Mico which was set up at the AV Driver showroom and was the best pq I had seen locally. I think it was a good decision. One of my overriding philosophies in this Audio-Video hobby is that whatever upgrade I have must be so good that you have to be blind not to see the improved picture or deaf to not hear the better audio. The Mico certainly meets this requirement. The picture quality improvement is pretty stunning.
