Living up to the hype and more...

Just received the TV (7/8/2006). Setup was simple, the initial channel scan that is supposed to take 50 minutes took about five (the $30 HD indoor antenna I had hooked up didn't pick up any viewable channels though).

Use with digital cable and HD cable channels
I chose to have my digital cable hookup thru the cable card slot on the TV rather than using a cable box. This allows me to use the TV's remote to surf but I cannot order movies on demand or use any other interactive features.
Regular digital channels display fairly well, and with four different screen sizing modes (Normal, Full, Wide, and Wide Zoom) one can easily cycle thru and pick whichever best fits the program being watched.
HD channels are positively stunning. Discovery HD and ESPN HD offer the best pictures and most consistent HD content of the HD channels. I was literally mesmerized by a Discovery HD program on Shanghai which featured jaw-dropping panorama of the city.

Use with an upconvert DVD player
I bought a LG upconvert DVD player to go along with it which, for the 3 movies i've watched so far, has produced a stunning picture. I should note though that occasionally in scenes with an extreme amount of green, yellow, or red the overall picture seems to tint a bit to that color but the effect is negligible.

Use with X-Box
Standard X-Box hooked up via regular A/V cables looks great and performs great. No controller lag like has been reported with some of the dlp's.

Pricing
As far as price and where to purchase from I'll just summarize how I came to buy this model. I began researching HDTV's about 2 months ago and finally on Memorial Day weekend decided to go to Best Buy and see the tv's i'd been reading about in person. At that point I had almost decided on one of the Samsung dlp's until I saw the KDSR50XBR1 in the showroom. I was drawn to it instantly and spent half an hour talking with a helpful sales person about it. They had the tv $2300 but I was unaware that this was a 2-day only special price. I left to do some internet research and a week later when I decided it was the TV I wanted I went back to Best Buy planning to plunk down $2300 for it. Unfortunately, at that point it was back up to it's original $2999 price but the same salesperson who helped me the first time said that if i'd wait until the 4th of July they'd be having another of those 2-day sales and the price would probably be even lower. So I waited until 4th of July weekend, eagerly checking the flyers hoping to see a super low price and find only that Best Buy has every tv except the XBR's on sale for the 4th of July. Thoroughly annoyed I checked Tweeter, Circuit City, etc. only to find the lowest they were offering it at was $2700. So I went to Best Buy, explained how I wanted to buy the tv today but that I wanted it at the Memorial Day sale price or I wasn't buying from them. The salesperson said he had to talk to his manager and was gone for about 15 minutes, and when he returned he said he could go as low as $2377, only $77 more than their Memorial Day special. This was close enough for me so I bought it. My point being, don't accept the initial price that major chains have these marked at because you can often get quite a bit knocked off the price ($600 in my case). You can find this model even cheaper at "grey market" online stores, but if they are not "Sony Authorized Dealers" Sony will not honor the warranty. I also preferred the peace of mind of having purchased it from a local, and from my experience dependable, chain store.