Posted on March 27, 2019 By Phil Jones
Epson Pro L1755UNL Laser Projector Review – Performance: Brightness, Audible Noise
The Espon Pro L1755UNL ability to deliver a claimed 15,000 lumens is amazing especially when you consider that only a decade ago, 2,000 lumen projectors were the favorite rental and staging projector options for handing auditoriums and hotel ballrooms.
Just how close did the Pro L1755UNL come to hitting its target 15,000 lumens? I measured its brightest mode, Dynamic, at full wide angle – this is with the iris wide open, so the most amount of light gets through. I took 3-4 readings about 15-20% out from the center of the lens. That should give a pretty good approximation of ANSI lumens unless a projector brightness rolls off excessively at the edges which this projector does not do.
The Pro L1755UNL measured 14965 lumens which was very close Epson’s brightness claim. I probably could have squeezed out even more brightness of the unit by making some additional menu adjustments like turning off pixel shifting. For the rest of the modes, I measured them at mid-zoom, so the iris is closed halfway. This is because it is more common for a projector to be zoomed in a bit than installed at full wide angle.
With the capability of delivering 15,000 lumens (as claimed by the manufacturer), the Epson Pro L1755UNL is insanely bright in my viewing room. When taking screenshots of my 120″ screen there was almost no need to turn off the room lighting. The projected image was so bright that the ambient light had a negligible effect on the photos. Even the warmth from the LED lighting wasn’t evident on the screen. It literally felt like I was looking at a giant flat panel. My wife and kids loved that they could read a book while I watched a TV show. I only bothered to kill the lights for the test images and the brightness measurements, but the ambient lighting really wouldn’t have impacted the measurements enough to matter.
While the Pro L1755UNL is not packaged with a lens, it is compatible with Epson motorized lenses. Once a lens is detected, the projector will adjust its maximum brightness level as outlined in the chart below.
For this review, Epson provided two lenses (ELPLM15, ELPLX02) and both lenses provided allow the projector to deliver its maximum brightness level.
In my testing room, I fully expected the Pro L1755UNL to be extremely noisy. Of course, this is a 15,000 lumen large venue projector, and which had no business being in a 350 sq. foot room and projecting onto a 120″ screen. Normally a unit like this would be in a 18,000 sq. ft room projecting on to a 250” or 300” screen.
I was surprised that the Pro L1755UNL was barely louder than a typical home theater projector. Even in my small room, no one had to shout, or even significantly raise their voice to talk over it.
On paper Epson quotes the Pro L1755UNL’s noise level at 40 db at full power and 30 in Quiet mode. For a reference, Epson’s popular 2400 lumen 5040UB home theater projector is only 2db (almost indistinguishably) quieter at full power. When compared to Sony’s FHZ65 which another commercial laser projector that we recently reviewed, the Pro L1755UNL was only 2db louder (in Quiet mode) while outputting nearly 3 times the brightness.
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