There are few things in life that really, honestly wow you; things that inspire a true sense of awe. The birth of your child. The light cascading down Ayr's Rock as the sun sets. A sober appearance from Amy Winehouse.

Alongside these, it would seem preposterous that anything in the world of electronics or home entertainment could compare.

I guess it depends on how easily pleased you are. Personally, I'm inclined to run around like a kid at a wedding at the mere sight of a new Grand Theft Auto game. I giggle and fuss every time I pin a shiny, new Blu-ray platter, and I still think my iPod Touch is cool.

So it's easy for me to be impressed by Pioneer's two latest Kuro screens. However, 'impressed' doesn't even cut it... Quite simply, the range-topping PDP-LX6090 is the best TV in the world bar none.

The 60incher's smaller sibling, the LX5090, runs it a close second and is, in itself, a standard-setting TV. But size, in this case, is everything.

At present, I'd argue that there is no better way of viewing hi-def movies or games than on Pioneer's king of screens, unless you require a much larger picture and therefore a projector. But I'd even suggest that the image quality of the LX6090 is so good that it represents a viable alternative to a projection-based home cinema installation.

Such is the power of Kuro. For those unfamiliar with Pioneer's flat panel branding, 'Kuro' (the
Japanese word for black) has been adopted because the set's black performance is key to why this latest iteration of its TV technology is so astoundingly good.

The black level response on both the LX6090 and the LX5090 is so intense that while the screen is on but not displaying an image, you can't see a thing in a darkened room. Nothing. Nada.

It's coal miner time. 'Oh yeah, we've seen it before,' 8th-gen Kuro owners might cry. But not like this. Not this deep. Not this scary.

The tech talk

For its G9 panels, Pioneer has nigh-on eliminated light bleed from individual cells and, therefore, can directly control the luminance of each separate pixel of the 1920 x 1080 resolution without any 'muddying' of colours or, indeed, black itself.

This has a secondary benefit; while blacks retain their integrity, brightness (white) is also
represented with pinpoint accuracy.