SIM2's C3X Projector Review - General Performance 2

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Art Feierman

Remote Control

Not bad, not bad at all, for a remote that few will use. I find it hard to believe that anyone plunking down $20,000 (or even $16,000) retail for a C3X or C3X lite, will end up using the projector's remote. Almost certainly you would end up with a nice room control system, like a Crestron, or perhaps a smaller, high quality remote to control all your devices, like an MX3000, etc.

Lens Throw and Lens Shift

Sim2 offers a choice of two lenses with the C3X or C3X Lite. My review unit came with the longer throw lens (which is why I couldn't completely fill my 128" screen in my room). The longer throw (they describe as the standard T2 lens) is a 1.5:1 with a throw of 2:1 (times screen width) to 3:1.

The shorter throw lens has a little less zoom range according to their website, a 1.33:1. with a throw of 1.5 times screens screen width to 2:1.

For a 100" screen (roughly 87" wide), that translates to the longer throw lens being able to fill the screen from 174" away to 261" away. With the shorter throw zoom, for the same sized screen: From 131" to 174". In all cases that is measured from the front of the lens.

The C3X has lens shift rated at +/- 50% of screen height. As a result, the projector can be positioned anywhere from the lens even with the bottom of the screen to even with the top of the screen.

SDE and No Rainbows

First, of course, this is a three chip DLP, so no rainbow effect that exists for single chip DLPs. Next comes seating distance relative to a screen door effect. I am primarily used to reviewing single chip DLP, and 3 panel LCD home theater projectors. The C3X pixel structure behaves pretty much the same as a single chip, in terms of how close you can sit before pixels become slightly visible in stationary very bright areas, or things like credits white on black at the end of a movie (always the most noticeable, but who cares).

Click Image to Enlarge

In my normal theater viewing room, where I watched probably close to 20 hours of content over the week and a half, I had the projector, I sat in my usual chair, eyes 11 feet from the screen. However I was only projecting a 110" diagonal image, so I was about 1.3 times screen width away. Pixels were completely not an issue. I would say that most viewers will be perfectly happy at 1.1 times screen width (about 9 feet from a 110" screen).

We are talking at these distances the point where pixels might be noticeable. You would have to be closer than that still to actually note distortion known as the screen door effect.

In other words, you can comfortably sit as close (relative to screen size) as any other DLP 720p projector on the market, and much closer than most LCD projectors. Only LCOS technology (D-ILA, SXRD, etc.) have significantly less visible pixel structures.

BTW up close I did note some misalignment of the chips. you could see some separation of the red and green. The amount of misalignment was a very minor (a small fraction of a pixel), and not at all visible at any normal seating distance.

Audible Noise Levels

The projector is rated at 28db. I believe them. I was certainly quiet enough. Any minor noise from the fan should completely dissapear into the background if the projector is ceiling mounted. I watched content with the C3X on a table approximately 5 feet behind me. Once I had content on, I never noticed the projector, even on the quietest of scenes.