Epson has announced a new, lower-cost entry in its much-vaunted Pro Cinema projector family, with the debut of the Epson Pro Cinema LS9000 4K 3LCD Laser Projector.
The new model made its entrance at the Audio Advice Live show taking place in Raleigh, North Carolina this week, and it’s priced at $3,999 (around £2,995), which is not cheap, but a lot more affordable than the highest-end LS12000 model, which costs $5,999 and is rated as one of the best pro-grade projectors money can buy.
There’s a lot to like about the Epson LS9000, though. Like the more powerful LS12000, it’s a 4K 3LCD projector with support for HDR10+, HDR10 and HLG, and it features a laser light source that comes with a motorised lens, powered zoom and autofocus, and lens shift of plus or minus 96% vertically, and up plus or minus 24% horizontally. The light source is rated as being good for up to 20,000 hours of viewing.
The Epson LS9000 isn’t quite as powerful as the LS12000, as its brightness maxes out at around 2,200 ISO lumens, whereas the latter can reach 2,700 ISO lumens. Also, it comes with a 32-bit ZX Picture Processor for taking care of real-time colour, frame interpolation, resolution enhancement and HDR, instead of the 36-bit version found on the LS12000. There’s a memory zoom option onboard that allows the projector to be used with an ultra-wide 2.35:1 screen, as well as support for third-party anamorphic lenses that are specifically designed for ultra-wide viewing.
In addition, the Epson LS9000 supports 4K resolution content at up to 120Hz, similar to the LS12000, and has a pair of HDMI 2.1 ports for smooth gaming, with ARC and eARC also supported.
Epson said the LS9000 can reproduce more than one billion colours on-screen, with dynamic contrast that’s reported to be over 2,500,000:1, and it can project an image of up to 300 diagonal inches (that’s huge!), with manual keystone correction tools for fine-tuning it.
If you’re looking for a high-powered projector for living room viewing, you may be more interested in Epson’s Q-Series models, which are 4K laser projectors that boast some of the highest brightness on the market.
The lower-cost QB1000 delivers up to 3,300 lumens, while the premium QL7000 cranks it up to a stunning 10,000 lumens, making it bright enough to be seen with absolute clarity, outside, on the sunniest of days. The Q-Series is perfect for living rooms, where ambient lighting is generally always present.
In contrast, the Epson LS9000 with its 2,200 lumens of brightness is more of a professional model, aimed at traditional darkened home theatres, where it can rely on its powerful projection capabilities and high contrast to project perfectly crisp images that easily match what most cinemas are capable of.
Given its professional-grade status, the Epson LS9000 does not come with its own operating system, so it can only be used in tandem with a second media source. In addition to the pair of HDMI 2.1 ports, there are also USB Type-A ports that allow for a streaming dongle or set-top box to be connected.
Smart home compatibility is also baked in, with support for IP control systems such as Control4 and Crestron via PJLink.
