Don't know if anyone remembers this thread:
I'm now selling my ACD 20" and going back to CRT. With one thing or another I hadn't been doing a lot of printing, went out to print a large amount of photos and was horrified with how they looked (not that the client would notice!).
The colour was off, the contrast was off and the brightness was off. I recalibrated with the Monaco, I sat there for an entire afternoon trying to tweak the curves in the video display driver to match the prints sitting in front of me. No luck. I couldn't get the contrast or brightness to match, either the shadows, the highlights or the midtones were too contrasty or over under contrasty. Especially the highlights. The CRT was PERFECT! Tried it with the monaco software and the Coloreyes and a spyder 2.
So I've given up, just bought a similar CRT (Compaq V700 the other is the V70) from ebay for the bank breaking price of £29 and now I will have two screens which are a doddle to calibrate, can be adjusted using my test print for room brightness at the beginning of each session and match the prints perfectly for brightness and contrast, highlights, shadows and facial tones.
I'm a photographer by profession and since I have a 100% digital workflow I cannot afford not to be able to match screen to print, I can't afford it! I thought to myself, can I afford this expensive screen which is far less accurate than the older CRT sitting next to it that also cost me £30 2nd hand? The answer is that for all the 'prettyness' of the widescreen flat panel, I don't have the time to deal with it.
I used to manage a lab. The difference between the LCD and the CRT in facial tonality, especially in the highlights, is the difference between Agfa paper from a 1 hour lab, and Fuji Professional from a pro lab.
Yes I'm sure I might have gotten better results from a >£1000 Eizo or whatever but considering that the highly regarded ACD is not giving me the results of a consumer level CRT costing 29 quid 2nd hand, is flat screen at all worth the bother? I think I'll wait it out for the next few years till things get better and prices cheaper on top end units.