Sony VPL-XW6000ES 4K SXRD Projector Review

The XW6000ES chassis measures approximately 18 inches wide, 8 ^9/32 inches high x 20 ^5/16 inches deep, and weighs about 31 pounds. While the XW6000ES is about 20% smaller and nearly 30% lighter than the Sony VPL-VW915ES sample I used as a reference unit, it is still much larger and heavier than most DLP-based home theater projectors. 

The projector’s intake vents are on the front of the chassis, flanking the lens and sides of the unit. The exhaust vents are located along the rear. The large chassis provides space for larger fans, which can circulate a lot of air at slower speeds, reducing audible noise. We do not measure audible noise, but Sony claims 26 dB, which is significantly quieter than most projectors. Whether in a dedicated home theater or a media room, you will very unlikely notice the nicely low-pitched background fan noise.

The XW6000ES is equipped with a 2.14:1 motorized ACF zoom lens which is center-mounted. When it comes to placement flexibility, the XW6000ES offers a lot of zoom range compared to most home theater projectors, whose zoom lenses usually range between 1.1:1 to 1.6:1, depending on the brand and model.

The ACF lens used in the XW6000ES offers motorized focus and zoom as well as plenty of horizontal and vertical lens shift. Having a large amount of zoom and shift capability makes installation a breeze, especially when you are trying to replace an older unit that was previously fixed-mounted.

Despite using a new chassis, the XW6000ES still employs the same menu system that Sony has been using for their home theater projectors for several years. While Sony has not made any significant changes to the appearance of the menus, they add new menu items to control any additional features or capabilities as needed.

The higher-end model projectors have more menus due to their additional features. For instance, the XW6000ES, which offers Lens Memory support, has menus dedicated to Lens Memory, whereas the manual lens equipped XW5000ES does not. Although the type is slightly smaller, it is still easily readable from a normal seating distance. Overall, the menus are well-designed and organized.

Since your room and screen material has a major impact on the overall picture, we don’t recommend using someone else calibration adjustments. If your room is brighter/darker or your walls are a different color, copying someone else results can cause more harm than good.

If you would like to make some quick adjustments to improve the picture quality of your projector in your room, check out our video called Optimize The Image of a Projector or TV Using Free Murideo Test Patterns 

However, below are the before and after calibration results in my room. To test, measure and calibrate the Sony XW6000ES, we used Portrait Displays Calman color calibration software.

Delta E as a measure of grayscale/color accuracy of 3 and under, is considered ‘Excellent’ and imperceptible by the human eye. After calibration, the XW6000ES had an average Grayscale dE of 1.1 and an average Color Tracking dE of 0.62, which are both outstanding.

Like most Sony Home Theater projectors, once the white balance is accurately adjusted for SDR, those adjustments work great for HDR as well. This really made calibration quick and easy, and I could do it in an hour or so. This speaks volumes to the time and effort that Sony puts into these projectors to ensure that they look really good out of the box so you don't have to spend a ton of time trying to correct things that should have been done at the factory.

The colors and skin tones looked great when I turned the projector on. While there was some improvement to the picture after calibration, the difference was not massive. I continue to be impressed with the out-of-the-box color reproduction of Sony home theater projectors. Great blacks and accurate colors are some of the main reasons why Sony projectors command a premium price.  Most customers would be happy with the picture quality of the XW6000ES whether it was calibrated or not.

However, if you're already spending $12,000 for a projector of this caliber, why would you not spend a few hundred dollars more to make sure the image is optimized for your room environment? Once the XW6000ES is calibrated, the unit’s Auto Calibrate feature, combined with its Z-Phosphor light source, ensures that the XW6000ES will deliver “calibrated” color accuracy for several years.

When matched with a 120” ambient light rejecting screen, 2500 ANSI Lumens is more than enough brightness to watch content under moderate ambient light. Even after SDR calibration, the XW6000ES still I still measured nearly 200 nits (cd/m2) off my 100" matte white screen, which is bright. Many projectors lose half of their rated brightness when calibrated, but XW6000ES maintained most of its pre-cal brightness.

Also, when viewing HDR content, the Dynamic HDR Contrast feature did an excellent job maximizing the brightness on the screen. The XW6000ES produced a brighter, more vibrant HDR image than many competitors’ projectors with higher rated/measured brightness.

HDR content offers expanded color space with better highlight and shadow detail, but even the brightest HDR projectors can struggle to reproduce HDR faithfully. Since they lack the brightness range to accurately display consumer HDR material which is mastered for flat panel display, tone mapping is necessary. The goal of tone mapping is to squeeze as much of the HDR brightness information into the limited brightness range of a projector. However, tone mapping is a compromise between maintaining bright highlight details and delivering higher screen brightness.

If a projector with less brightness does a better job of tone mapping than a brighter projector, HDR will look better on the dimmer projector. This is one of the reasons why HDR content looks better on a 2500-lumen Sony XW6000ES than most competitors’ 3500-lumen home theater models.

The XW6000ES produced close to its rated brightness of 2500 ANSI lumens, even in its most accurate picture modes. The projector's newly developed native 4K UHD SXRD panels delivered a sharp picture with black levels that easily matched previous Sony 4K SXRD projectors. Regarding native contrast and black level, very few home theater projectors, except for JVC DILA projectors, can match/beat the XW6000ES. I have never reviewed a single-chip DLP home theater projector that can even come close.

The X1 Ultimate video processor found in the XW6000ES did an excellent job of upscaling HD content. The video processor combines frame-by-frame signal HDR analysis and precise modulation of its 2500-lumen laser source to produce an excellent  HDR picture. So, whether viewing HD, 4K, or HDR content, the picture quality delivered by the Sony XW6000ES was outstanding right out-of-the-box.

For nearly a year, I had the opportunity to use a VW915ES as my reference projector, so I am very familiar with their 2021 models. While the VW915ES is an excellent projector, the XW6000ES looks better due to its higher-quality ACF lens, better video processing, and additional 500 lumens brightness.

Compared to the lens used on the VW915ES, the ACF lens used in the XW6000ES is physically smaller, but it delivered a noticeable increase in clarity and edge-to-edge sharpness. While I didn’t have the opportunity to compare the XW6000ES with an ARC-F lens-equipped model like the VW1025ES, Sony says the optical quality is similar.

The XW6000ES, like most Sony SXRD projectors, includes several “installer-friendly” features, including a motorized lens with tons of zoom and lens shift, including position memories. Picture position memories are great for customers with masking screens or anyone who want to maximize the image size of 16:9 and widescreen on a 2.35:1 screen.

In addition, the XW6000ES has a large amount of zoom and horizontal/vertical lens shift capability, which makes installation a breeze, especially when trying to replace an older, previously mounted unit.

In addition to the XW6000ES, Sony is introducing two additional new laser-based 4K SXRD Home Theater XW Series models. While Sony has slimmed down their projector lineup slightly, they still offer a total of five 4K HDR home theater projectors, starting with the XW5000ES ($6,000 SRP) and moving up to the flagship GTZ380 which is $80,000 (minus the ARC-F Lens).

See below for a summary of the Sony 4K SXRD projector lineup for 2022.

The only projector in its price range that rivals the XW6000ES is the JVC NZ7 /RS2100, which retails for $11,000. The JVC offers features like 8K e-shift, HDR10+ compatibility, and 48Gbps HDMI 2.1 inputs for 8K@60fps and 4K@120fps playback.

While features like 8K@60fps and 4K@120fps look good on paper, it offers minimal benefit if you are a movie enthusiast. Movie buffs still love the cinematic look of 24-frame-per-second content, so 120fps is utilized in gaming and test footage.

Compared to the JVC NZ7, the XW6000ES is 300 ANSI lumens brighter while being much lighter and far more compact. When viewing SDR or HDR, both projectors delivered an outstanding image. Which unit looks best really comes down to personal preference. Regardless, any projector enthusiasts would be happy with either one.

So to summarize, I was very happy that Sony gave me the opportunity to review the XW6000ES. I had already reviewed the model below the XW5000ES s and the model above the XW7000ES. The XW5000ES is actually one of my favorite projectors. It is the least expensive three-chip native 4k laser projector on the market by far, so I was very curious to see if it was worth it to spend an additional $6,000 to step up from an XW5000ES to an XW6000ES.

Based on our time with the projector, the answer is yes. If you're looking for more brightness and you also want to utilize Sony's best optics for this type of projector, or the flexibility of motorized lenses with lens memories for an ultra-wide screen and you're interested in things such as 3D, the XW6000ES is an excellent option for you. Remember this projector still retails for about $8,000 less than what you would have paid for a Sony laser 4K projector just two years ago. So it's still an outstanding value so it is highly recommended.