VIEWING ANGLESo, I just wanted to clarify a couple of things about these new displays, and show you some photos of what I mean.
These are not vacuum fluorescent (VFD) or OLED displays. They are the latest LCD displays, and are illuminated by LEDs behind the display.
Because of the way they work, on the displays with a black background, it's not possible for that black background to be totally black, especially at large viewing angles. The bigger the viewing angle, the more illumination you will see 'bleed' into the display.
OLED displays do offer a perfect black background, but they suffer from screen burn (wear as the pixels that are illuminated most often start to fade). Blue on black OLED displays suffer most here, and they really need some kind of screensaver control in software to switch them off when not in use. With an S900/950, that's not an option.
VFDs are the other display type that offers great contrast and perfect black background. They are a lot more expensive though. They too suffer from wear, their lifespan is better than OLED, but it can still be a problem. To give you a rough idea, I have a Lexicon FX unit with a VFD display that was switched on constantly for 2 years, by which time the pixels are very uneven. There's a sort of screensaver built into the Lexicon, but it just switches between different pages of text, so it still burns the display out.
These LCD displays offer a good compromise. They are still a massive improvement on the original, the contrast is great, and they can be viewed in bright light or total darkness. They don't suffer from any noticable screen burn and they have the longest expected lifespan of any display. Especially with a machine like an S950 where the display spends most of its life displaying the same line of text.
This colour bleed only affects displays with black or dark backgrounds, it does not affect the white/ocean blue of the black on orange displays. (You still need to adjust the contrast on those, of course, depending on what your viewing angle is)
At a comfortable operating angle, with the sampler somewhere near eye level, it's not going to be an issue. It's only an issue at large viewing angles, which would be uncomfortable to operate the sampler at anyway, regardless of what display type you had.
If you've got any questions at all, or would like to see any other photos, just let me know.
Here's an example of the green/black display viewed from different angles:
Viewed from below:
From above
Again, from above:
From the side:
From the front:
