Home Cinema LS11000 4K PRO-UHD Laser Projector (V11HA48020)

I got an Epson ls11000. I'm loving it!

I would go with the w4100i as a good option for home theater and a little bit of gaming. For more toward the gaming side, go for the TK710. If your space allows it, I would actually choose the LS9000 over any of these and it's at a reasonable price. If you can reach it, the ls12000 is absolutely phenomenal. Best for $1000 - eBay refurbished Benq Ht3550 Best for $1500 - ebay refurbished Benq HT4550i Best for $2000 Gaming - Benq tk710. If you are more toward movies but have a 2000 budget, go for the Benq  W2720i Best for $2500 - refurbished Epson 5050ub Best for $3000 - Benq W4100i Best for $4000 - Epson ls9000 Best for $4500 - Epson LS11000. It would be a tough call between this and the ls9000 because 11000 has more lumens but 9000 has better contrast. Best for $5000 - You can probably find a Native 4K Sony XW5000es Best for $6000 - Epson LS12000, Benq W5800, or Sony XW5000es if you can't find it for $5000 I am like you too and want Laser. But Benqs LED is amazing and I would choose it over 90 percent of laser projectors. Unless you choose the Benq HT3550, I wouldn't consider lamp in 2025.

Oh sorry, I didn't specify but the prices I put are in USD. I overlooked your budget, but let me give you some advice. If you want to go strictly under $2500, nothing can beat a 5050ub refurbished at that price point. What I would do is get a LS11000 refurbished at $3,100 USD which comes with a 2 year warranty because it's Epson refurbished, and that is the best bang for your buck. If you feel more comfortable, go with the Benq w4100i for $3000 which has a LED light source which I love. It won't be as good as the LS11000, but it will be more compact and better for short ceilings. It does have more lumens, but for a 110 inch screen, you won't need those lumens unless the lights are fully on. What I would do in my honest opinion, is just get a 100 or 98 inch tv. I was about to do that to my home theater, but I had space to upgrade to 120. If you can get 115+ then go projector. 

Good DTM is an important feature as well. But, the Epson 5050UB has neither. This is why I crap on it all the time. It is simply out of date at this point and people have better options that look better, but they are all DLP at this price, so if you have serious RBE issues, then that means you are forced to buy Epson or a used Sony/JVC model if you can find one.

Chairs are 2 feet deep, plus you need walking room between them. You aren't easily fitting 2 rows in a space of just a few feet. You need about 5-6 feet between rows for reclining chairs to fit at all. That said, I do agree that the XGimi Titan Noir is one of the hot products out there right now. The Valerion models are nice, but really the Max should be closer to $3,000 for it to be a really good deal. There is no way in the world I would get or recommend the Epson 5050UB to anyone at this point unless there was no other choice. That model is over half a decade out of date and lacks many features which are standard on more modern models. The lens is great. The fact it is LCD is good for some. But, the lamp inside of it is unheard of on any modern higher end model. Epson it long overdue to update this model, so don't buy it if you don't have to.

Valerion Visionmaster, XGimi Horizon 20. There are newer and newer models which have dynamic tone mapping and more advanced features and support for HDR content built in along with better brightness and better control for HDR content. They have a wider color gamut and can deliver the full DCI-P3 color space without problem. BenQ continues to be a very good performer in this price range as well. All of them have solid state light sources which already is an improvement and is 'better' than the sub-$3,000 5+ year old offerings from Epson at this price point as well. I don't hate Epson, and if you have to get a 5050UB, then it's not a piece of shit. It's just a fuck you to consumers from Epson. They know it's out of date. They know that the competition has moved to solid state projectors. They know if they just dropped a solid state light source into these models with some small firmware tweaks, that they would be incredibly popular and would undercut their super expensive new models. It's not that the 5050UB sucks, it's that Epson is giving all consumers the middle finger at this point.

I don't think people with the 5050UB should be unhappy. But, the LS11000 costs more, and has lower contrast, while XGimi is pushing out models like the Horizon 20, base model, for about $1,600, that is every bit as good or better than what Epson has in their 3200/3800 models, for less/similar money. The high end models that are in the same price range of the 5050UB are squaring up against it nicely. Valerion has been tested against JVC models with solid performance. I think Epson is trying to compete in the high end, instead of doing their best in the middle range where they have excelled for decades. Not just years, but decades they have been such an easy recommendation. We also saw from BenQ that it is not that expensive to switch from a lamp system to a laser system. It just makes no sense to buy a lamp based projector that is over half a decade old in design, considering the competition.

I’m asking myself the same question. I found a used LS11000 for $1,000, half the price of used 6050ub’s in my area, will likely pick it up tomorrow to test out. At the same time, I keep thinking of “buy once cry once”

That’s less true now than it has been at any point in the last decade. Home tri laser projectors are among the most significant ever quality improvements in the sub-$10k home projection space and the tech is advancing rapidly year on year—better DBL algorithms, improved anti RBE measures, improved native brightness/contrast/gamut, etc. On the horizon we have higher refresh rate and VRR DLP chips and lasers with broader emissions spectra to reduce speckle. It’s a great time for home projection. None of that detracts from the quality of your unit (and there are some areas where Epson still beats the competition) but it does mean that there are overall better options for buying new today. Similarly, I’m blown away by the quality of my Valerion Pro2 but would likely recommend that someone buying new go for the Titan Noir Max, which is an overall superior unit for a similar price despite the Valerion itself still being very new to market compared to your Epson.

You mentioned yourself that the blacks could be darker on your Epson. They are, and for less money, on other models. If the difference is immaterial or imperceptible to you all the better—no need to spend lots of money to upgrade your very capable kit. To someone newly in the market, though, for what reason should they spend $4k on an Epson when they could buy a Titan Noir with better specs for $3k?

Absolutely. I wouldn’t call Valerion or Xgimi fly by night operations. Both have been on the market for some time and sell through many of the same retail channels as Epson does. Warranty support has to this point been fine from both companies. Given that, I’d say that the question here is whether $1k is worth a stronger guarantee that replacement parts will exist outside the warranty period. Considering the exceptionally long life of laser light sources I decided for my own purchase that a better performing projector offered for less money with identical warranty support was the better deal in today’s market. Others may have different priorities than mine but I don’t think that Valerion and xgimi selling on Kickstarter is a compelling reason to ignore their products.