It’s official: the 2026 TV Shootout is happening next month and it will include six of the top performing TVs of 2026. As usual, the Shootout event will be hosted by the good folks at Value Electronics at their headquarters on 35 Popham Road in Scarsdale, NY, starting at 9:30 AM and running as long as it takes until a new KING OF TV is crowned. Let’s hope their AC unit is up to the challenge (things can get a bit toasty with all those calibrators and judges packed in there).
The Competitors
With Panasonic effectively dropping back out of the high end TV market in the United States, just three manufacturers will be represented this year: LG, Samsung and Sony. Each manufacturer will have one OLED TV and one RGB-lit LCD TV in the fight, for a total of six models.
OLED TV Shootout (65-inch):
- Sony BRAVIA 8, Mark II QD-OLED TV (K65XR80M2)
- MSRP: $3,299, available at Amazon
- Samsung S95H QD-OLED TV (QN65S95H)
- MSRP: $3,399, available at Best Buy
- LG G6 Quad Stack W-OLED TV (OLED65G6WUA)
- MSRP: $3,299, available at Best Buy
RGB-Backlit LCD TV Shootout (75-inch):
- Sony BRAVIA 9 II True RGB LCD TV (K75XR90M2)
- MSRP: $4,599, available at Best Buy and Crutchfield
- LG RGB95B Micro RGB Evo LCD TV (75MRGB95BUA)
- MSRP: $4,999, available at Best Buy
- Samsung R95H Micro RGB LCD TV (MRN75R95H)
- MSRP: $4,499, available at Best Buy
As in previous competitions, all TVs will be evaluated by professional judges from within the A/V community: tech journalists (including yours truly), trained calibrators and creative video content professionals. The evaluation will feature video test clips, stills and real world movie scenes chosen to highlight specific areas of video performance such as contrast, brightness, color volume, color accuracy, motion reproduction, HDR tone mapping and image uniformity. After the tests, the judges’ scorecards will be tabulated an a new “King of TV” crowned for 2026.
As they have since the very first TV Shootout in 2004, consumers can use the results of the event and the judges’ scorecards to select the best TV for their own liking and specific use-case. Performance in both bright and light-controlled rooms will be considered.
Event creator, Robert Zohn, had these words for the upcoming event: “The arrival of Micro RGB TVs marks one of the most intriguing developments in display technology in recent years. We are eager to see how the 2026 TV lineup performs in our side-by-side comparison with all the excellent contenders this year. This is a must-see event for all who are interested in the best video displays.”
As in previous years, it “takes a village” to put the event together, with many folks working behind the scenes to prepare for and run the event. It also takes a fair amount of gear. AVPro Global is supplying the latest state-of-the-art switching, distribution, and test equipment for the event. Magnetar’s UDP-900MKII flagship 4K universal disc player and Kaleidescape’s Strato K 8K-capable Media Player will be the reference sources for content. The Strato K is the company’s first player to support 4:4:4 color encoding and video bitrates that far exceed those of UHD Blu-ray Disc.
As in previous years, Sony’s BVM-HX3110 professional mastering monitors will be used as the reference displays, against which all competing TVs will be compared.
Portions of the event will be webcast live to reach the largest audience of A/V enthusiasts and media. After the TV Shootout is completed, several of the top YouTube TV specialty channels (including our friends Stop the FOMO, B The Installer and Brian’s Tech Therapy) will have edited content of the TV Shootout for everyone worldwide to see the key components of the event. We’ll also be sure to publish the complete results here on eCoustics.com once they have been finalized.
The Bottom Line
While previous TV Shootouts have not been without controversy, as some TVs have not always performed as well as expected, the TV Shootout remains one of the premier TV comparison events as it pits the top performing TVs against each other and hits them with a wide range of content to reveal each of their strengths and weaknesses. The event’s results will help inform TV buyers’ choices through the remainder of 2026 and beyond.
For more information, all TVs are available at Value Electronics, Best Buy, and Crutchfield.
Related Reading:
- TV Shootout 2025 Results Revealed: Meet the King of TV for 2025
- TV Shootout 2025 Results Discussed with Special Guest, B The Installer (YouTube)
