TV picture issue, anyone?

I am not a videophile. I don't do HT. Basically, I'm not too concerned about anything beyond getting a picture that looks decent to me and doesn't have any distracting stuff going on that shouldn't be there.

I recently moved, and now we're sitting farther away from the set, so it was time to get a new TV with a bigger picture than my 15 year old NEC 20". As it has turned out, I have now gotten two new TV's, and both have had a problem (which is the reason I returned the first one) that is bothering me.

Probably the only real reason I pay for cable, other than local sports, is to watch old movies on TCM and AMC. I love black and white. When I watch B&W movies, black and white (and shades of gray) is what I want to see.

I first got a Panasonic 27" model for $400 at my local Circuit City (man, does that place suck or what?) as a floor demo, marked down from $500. It seemed alright, but I noticed that B&W images had slight spurious colors imposed on them, no matter where the color level control was set. There was a bluish cast at the left and right edges, and a blotchy orange cast in the middle. Since there were no sources of magnetism anywhere near the set, back to the store I went with it.

Rather than have them try to service it, I decided to upgrade to a Sony KV27FS100 for another $100, because there were a couple of operational issues I didn't like about the Panasonic anyway. This unit was NIB, and when I got it home, it was easy to see that it actually had the better picture of the two in just about every way. But when I tried B&W, guess what? Same thing, only this time a little bit more noticable if anything, and now the colors are reversed, being reddish at the side edges and bluish through the middle.

The TV sits on a wooden cube, and is placed about three feet out from a corner, so it's not against any walls. There are no outboard speakers being used with it. There is a VCR, but nothing changes when this is removed. The anomoly occurs with all sources including antenna and prerecorded tape, is present no matter what cables are in use, and is independent of all adjustment control settings. I never saw this problem with either of two old NECs, and now I've had it with two new sets in a row. I assume it is also present with color images, but is just harder to notice.

I emailed Sony, and after jumping through all of their hoops to get a real response, they basically just said "remove all possible sources of magnetism". No duh! My brother had an interesting take: he thought that maybe, since both sets had side-positioned internal speakers, that it was possible that the manufacturers simply weren't properly shielding the drivers from the CRT. I don't know about this, but I do know one of the NECs also had speakers positioned along the side, and didn't show this problem.

Anyone know what the deal is with this? What kind of TV am I going to have to get just to watch unsullied B&W, and how much is it going to cost me? Or is there something else going on here, or something else I can do about it? TIA for your suggestions.