Best 30" monitor money can buy

[Zachary Goulko]

After 3 years of using 2 Eizo Coloredge 21" monitors side by side, I'd like to upgrade to a single 30" monitor.
The cg21 monitors are great, but I'm getting sick of the gap in the middle between the two monitors. I spoke to several friends, and apparently the Eizo 30" Coloredge is not nearly as good as the 21" and 24".
Has anyone had experience with the 30" Coloredge?
It seems there are many Adobe RGB gamut monitors on the market now.
All suggestions are appreciated.

[Czornyj]

After 3 years of using 2 Eizo Coloredge 21" monitors side by side, I'd like to upgrade to a single 30" monitor.
The cg21 monitors are great, but I'm getting sick of the gap in the middle between the two monitors. I spoke to several friends, and apparently the Eizo 30" Coloredge is not nearly as good as the 21" and 24".
Has anyone had experience with the 30" Coloredge?
It seems there are many Adobe RGB gamut monitors on the market now.
All suggestions are appreciated.

There are 2 CG 30" Eizo models - CG301W with S-PVA, and new CG303W with P-IPS matrix. Personally I don't think that S-PVA type panel is a good idea for such a large display, so I wouldn't even consider CG301W, especially after having 21" CG Eizo with decent Hitachi advanced IPS type matrix. I'd also suggest to wait for NEC PA301W - it should be much cheaper than CG303W that costs a fortune, but should also be at least as good as Eizo (if not even better).

The new NEC PA271W is also a smart and economic alternative - it has 2540x1440px resolution, but is reasonably smaller, thinner, and it emits much less heat than my NEC 3090WQXi.

[Zachary Goulko]

There are 2 CG 30" Eizo models - CG301W with S-PVA, and new CG303W with P-IPS matrix. Personally I don't think that S-PVA type panel is a good idea for such a large display, so I wouldn't even consider CG301W, especially after having 21" CG Eizo with decent Hitachi advanced IPS type matrix. I'd also suggest to wait for NEC PA301W - it should be much cheaper than CG303W that costs a fortune, but should also be at least as good as Eizo (if not even better).

The new NEC PA271W is also a smart and economic alternative - it has 2540x1440px resolution, but is reasonably smaller, thinner, and it emits much less heat than my NEC 3090WQXi.

So after doing some research and reading, I decided to go for the NEC 3090 as my main monitor, and keep my Eizo Coloredge as a secondary monitor side by side. Yesterday, I set both monitors up. Each on their own separate video cards, calibrated both individually. NEC calibrated with the included puck, and the Eizo with the EyeOne pro. Since I do mostly print work, I set the white point to 5000k, and brightness to 120.
The Eizo has been a great monitor for the past 2 years, and dead-on accurate when compared to my prints.
Now that the 2 are side by side, when I view a 50% gray image they are completely off. The Eizo looks neutral, while the NEC has a weird greenish cast to it.
I've recalibrated each monitor numerous times, and they are still completely off from each other.
I wasnt expecting to get an exact match, since the NEC is a wide gamut monitor, but the gray balance should be MUCH closer than this.
Any suggestions why this is happening?

[digitaldog]

Any suggestions why this is happening?

Switch cards and see what happens. Also, there is nothing that says calibrating the two displays to the same target values produce the same results. One may have to be set quite differently from the other to produce a visual match. And 5000K is a very vague target (Kelvin values are a range of colors). Even if both products were set to say D50 (an exact color), same instrument, its not at all odd to get different results from differing software products.

[shewhorn]

Did you just set the white point to 5000ºK on each monitor or did you set it on one monitor, profile it, and then measure the resulting white point from the 1st monitor to use as the white point for setting up the 2nd monitor? That latter is the correct way to do it. Also, I can guarantee you that part of your problem is the fact that you're using two different pucks. Two different pucks (even if they're identical) will give you two different results. Colorimeters are built with cheap electronics, expect the tolerances to be sloppy. ETA The Eye One Pro being a spectophotometer should be a little more consistent from copy to copy but... we're dealing with the differences between a spectrophotometer and a colorimeter (which should in theory do a little better with the blacks). I also own an Eye One Display 2 (that came with my NEC 2690) and an Eye One Pro. They both yield different results. In terms of white point though if you set and profile the white point on screen 1 with puck 1 using software package 1 and then measure the white point of screen 1 using software package 2 and puck 2, you should be doing a lot better than just entering in a value.

Just for kicks, on the SAME monitor using the SAME software, plug in both pucks and take a white point measurement from both. There's a pretty good chance you'll get two different results.

Another tip... BEFORE doing anything, make sure both screens have had at least 45 minutes to warm up, and both pucks have had at least 10 minutes to warm up (just leave them plugged into the USB port). The electronics need to get up to their operating temperatures otherwise they'll drift.

Cheers, Joe

[WillH]

So after doing some research and reading, I decided to go for the NEC 3090 as my main monitor, and keep my Eizo Coloredge as a secondary monitor side by side. Yesterday, I set both monitors up. Each on their own separate video cards, calibrated both individually. NEC calibrated with the included puck, and the Eizo with the EyeOne pro. Since I do mostly print work, I set the white point to 5000k, and brightness to 120.
The Eizo has been a great monitor for the past 2 years, and dead-on accurate when compared to my prints.
Now that the 2 are side by side, when I view a 50% gray image they are completely off. The Eizo looks neutral, while the NEC has a weird greenish cast to it.
I've recalibrated each monitor numerous times, and they are still completely off from each other.
I wasnt expecting to get an exact match, since the NEC is a wide gamut monitor, but the gray balance should be MUCH closer than this.
Any suggestions why this is happening?

There are a number of issues going on here because you have two different types of displays with different spectral outputs. You are also using two different sensors. Even if you use the same sensor on both displays (I would recommend using the iOne Pro since you have it) I wouldn't be surprised to see that they didn't match exactly. Part of the reason has to do with the whole 10' vs 2' observer issue which causes colors on different screens not to match visually (due to the different spectral outputs) even though the sensor reports they are the same color.

I would recommend you try the visual Target creation method described in the 3rd FAQ in the SpectraView User's Guide. In this case you would use the Eizo as your reference, and visually adjust white on the LCD3090 to match. Then measure and create a new Target and recalibrate the LCD3090.

[Jack Flesher]

The Eizo looks neutral, while the NEC has a weird greenish cast to it.
I've recalibrated each monitor numerous times, and they are still completely off from each other.
I wasnt expecting to get an exact match, since the NEC is a wide gamut monitor, but the gray balance should be MUCH closer than this.
Any suggestions why this is happening?

I suspect you'll find that if you profile the Eizo first with the i1 then the NEC with it's software, the NEC will be dead-on and the Eizo will go pink.  Four of us have found this same behavior on our Macs when trying to mate the wide-gamut NEC to another standard monitor.  We have a theory as to why, but only a theory.  Anyway, we've all found that choosing the default profile for the menu monitor generally renders a pretty accurate gray response, and close enough to use in conjunction with the properly calibrated NEC.  My ultimate solution will be a pair (or trio) of NEC 30's (), but for now I'm living with my menu monitor as-is...

Next, I'd recommend you try setting white point at 6500K instead of 5000, and then not be afraid to take the NEC up to a brightness of 140 as it helps you better visualize color subtleties during soft-proofing...

[shewhorn]

Next, I'd recommend you try setting white point at 6500K instead of 5000, and then not be afraid to take the NEC up to a brightness of 140 as it helps you better visualize color subtleties during soft-proofing...

"6500ºK" with most devices out there is an absolutely meaningless number. For a screen that measures 6500ºK with my Eye One Pro, my Spyder 3 will say it's 7400ºK and my DTP94 will say it's 5600ºK. Which one is actually correct? I have absolutely no clue. I'd like to say it's the Eye One Pro since it's a spectrophotometer and should in theory be more accurate BUT... I don't have a lab grade spectro to compare it against so I have no idea. If you're not worried about an exact print to screen match then I'd recommend profiling your screen to the monitor's native white point as that will require the least amount of correction. Due to "chromatic adaptation" your eye will adapt to whatever white point you set. White as viewed under a fluorescent light is going to be different than white as viewed under afternoon sunlight or fire light but since we as humans need to be able to tell if what we're about to put in our mouth is rotten or not, we have evolved to be able to adapt and identify what white is regardless of the color temperature of the light. If you're just going to be looking at your screen, you're good to go. A problem however arises if you're looking at your screen and comparing it to something else with a different white point, then the match is more critical.

If you're after a truly accurate print to screen match other things will come into play that determine what color temp you should be profiling to and that is going to depend heavily upon the paper you are printing to, and the light source you are using to illuminate the print with (hopefully, it's something that is controllable and consistently reproducible). It's much easier to change the color temp of the monitor than it is to change the resulting color temp that is the product of your paper and light source

With regards to luminance, you also have the issue of sloppy tolerances between what one device will report for luminance and another, but more importantly luminance is more of a function of the ambient light in your environment and if you have the light in your editing room properly controlled, 140 cd/m^2 is typically going to be too bright. Turn your monitor off and look at it. That is the blackest black it can reproduce and it's a function of how much light is reflecting off of it. If you have a light on a dimmer switch you can effective change the black level of that display just by changing the intensity of that light but in addition to that, you also run into issues with a loss of contrast due to light reflecting off of your screen. In a room with the proper amount of ambient light (which is hopefully placed in a position that it will not reflect off of your screen) 140 cd/m^2 for me is too bright, and a quick path to a bad headache.

Cheers, Joe