Mark Smithe admits to a moment of doubt before shelling out $10,000 for a 65-inch high-definition, flat-panel, plasma TV and related gear last week.

The hesitation was brief. He's a Bears fan, after all, and what better way to experience the Super Bowl than to see and hear every Brian Urlacher glare and crunching hit through a system with 2 million pixels and theater-quality speakers?

"It's a little bit of keeping up with the Joneses," said Smithe, one of an estimated 2.5 million Americans purchasing a new television for Super Bowl Sunday, based on results of a recent survey. "Our friends' jaws are going to drop when they see this."

Just buying chip and dip and a 12-pack of beer doesn't cut it for Super Bowl parties any more. If you expect your friends and neighbors to choose your place for the big game, you may have to pony up for a flat-screen TV, digital tuner and surround-sound speakers so they can spectate with quality.

Sunday's showdown between the Bears and Indianapolis Colts is amplifying a high-definition TV buying frenzy that already was under way thanks to a 20 percent to 30 percent drop in prices from a year ago and heavy promotions by retailers and manufacturers.

"A lot of people want them and they've been waiting for prices to come down," said Mike Gatti, executive director of the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, which conducted the nationwide survey on consumers' TV buying intentions in early January. "They're still not cheap, but they're starting to get within range of people who are saying 'Gee I'm going to get one now.'"

Money isn't necessarily an object. On one recent day at the 70,000-square-foot showroom with fountains, granite and marble floors and vast aisles filled with high-def goodies, shoppers were examining 50-inch televisions by Bang & Olufsen for $20,000 and even an 80-inch set dubbed "The Ultimate Plasma TV" for $150,000.

"People don't care about price," Mike Abt, president of the business his grandmother founded in 1936, said happily. "They're asking the salesmen what's the highest-quality set."

Consumer anthropologist Robbie Blinkoff says the growing obsession with big-screen TVs on Super Bowl Sunday makes it easier for people to enjoy a shared group experience, albeit in a very American way.

"It's insane, it seems, to spend so much money on a TV," said Blinkoff, who does consumer research for Baltimore-based consulting firm Context-Based Research Group. "But from an anthropological viewpoint, it has its root cause. In our culture, how we define ourselves is through what we buy."

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[Global warming? Oh, it has to mean that we get better weather conditions during the Super Bowl.]