Excellent value for money; Great PQ; Atrocious Sound

I bought the Samsung LN46A550 LCD HDTV from Big River on Dec. 1st and it arrived via the White Glove Shipping Service (CEVA) on Dec. 11th, exactly the day they had estimated.  They called 2 days before and set up a time they could come to drop it off.  They brought it in, unboxed it, placed it on the table, hooked up the power cord and tested the remote.  They would have also taken away the box if I had wanted them to. 
So far, so GREAT with this TV.  I had researched for almost a year, so I knew what I wanted, and I got it.  I wont repeat the specs on this unit, but rather describe my experience with it.  Currently, I have it connected, via coaxial cable, to my basic cable service.  Nothing to write home about as far as SD programming goes with this TV.  But, again, that is the lack of quality of signal, not the TV.  The TV simply displays what it receives.  I also have it hooked up to the Samsung BD-P1500 Blueray player, I also bought on the Big River, via an inexpensive HDMI cable.  First blueray we watched was Hancock and it was amazing.  You really get spoiled watching the 1080p blueray and then have to go back to SD for TV watching. Blah.  But we plan to get HD service from DirecTV soon.

I have a “C” panel, but have no complaints about it.  It looks great to me.  No stuck pixels (that I have found yet, anyway), no dark corners, no banding, etc.  The remote works from at least 20 ft away if directly in front of TV, and works at about 30-40 degrees off center when within 10ft, no complaints there.  Mine came with the 1006.1 firmware, so I don’t have any info regarding updating the FW for this TV, although I have read that it’s rather easy.  Have viewed jpegs and played mp3s via a thumb/flash drive on the USB port on the side, works great.  We have the couch set back about 12ft from the screen and I think that is about as close as you would want to be with the 46” model. If you don’t have that much room I would recommend the 40” model (LN40A550).  Another great thing about this model is that there is no reflective cover over the screen so watching the TV during the day is great; no glare or reflections when watching in a bright room.  No complaints about the viewing angle either.  We have a love seat sitting off center to the TV by about 40 degrees or so and there is no color change that I can see.  There is a slight darkening of the color if you are 80 or more degrees of center, but who really would be sitting that far off to the side!  And there really isn’t any more distortion than you would get from a regular CRT TV anyway.
One HUGE CAVEAT is the sound quality.  Like most have reported here, the sound, in my opinion, is atrocious.  Out of the box it was horrible; however, a quick calibration found on the AVSForum website made it much more acceptable.
I would recommend some sort of speaker system for it though.  You can go the audiophile route and add an expensive surround sound system, or just buy some inexpensive computer speakers like I did.  I would recommend the Logitech Computer Speakers X240 (google it) that simply hook into the earphone jack on the side.  They improved the sound IMMENSELY, although you do lose the ability to alter the sound equalizer, so make changes to the sound before you hook up the speakers.
Summary: Considering what you are getting for your money, I would definitely recommend this LCD HDTV; and get it from Amazon: lowest price, no tax and free shipping!  It has turned out to be all that I hoped, and has really made watching movies at home a pleasure.