Lee Neikirk

I write about TVs, media streaming devices, TV wall mounts, Blu-ray players, and other AV equipment. Because I’m a musician, I occasionally help test things such as USB audio interfaces.

I joined Wirecutter in 2022, roughly 10 years after starting in AV journalism at USA Today. I've tested dozens of displays and attended countless conferences and trade shows to gain my current understanding of the TV landscape.

After completing a BA in classical guitar in 2010, I worked stints as a security guard, a janitor, and a TA in a university songwriting course. Later, I earned an MS in psychology, hoping to understand why I paid for a guitar degree. In 2022, I completed ISF Level III certification in TV calibration—much more relevant to my career but admittedly less fun.

I was born in Kentucky and lived for various lengths of time in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and California, before swinging back to Western Mass and settling down with my wife, daughter, and cat.

As a Wirecutter journalist, I share the values and adhere to the standards of integrity outlined in our editorial standards. In accordance with Wirecutter’s ethics policy, I never keep any products that I have tested for Wirecutter and do not accept any products that aren’t meant for testing.

Although many of the TVs I receive for testing are loaned samples from manufacturers, I perform stringent warm-up and factory-reset procedures to ensure that the displays haven’t been cherry-picked. When manufacturers don’t want their loaned TVs back, I either send the TVs to other Wirecutter staffers for long-term testing or donate them to charity.