Was curious after seeing the 7" DIY set and the Admiral electrostatic on the same thread. What was the best electrostatic set made. I have considerable experience with the Motorola's but no others. I have mine stable enough to run over an hour without the horizontal needing adjustment. Any opinions? Experience with others as to stability and other factors that would make one stand out?

I favor the Admiral because of its power transformer and standard coil tuner... it just seems to be a higher quality set. Better performance? ... hard to tell much difference, the Motorola sets work pretty well.
jr

The only real performance issue I have found with the Motorola is that the vertical hold needs to be adjusted after it warms up. Other than that my fully recapped 9VT1 performs quite well.

I don't think there's a huge difference between them as far as the picture goes.

The Sentinel's are notoriusly fussy to get working right, lots of post manufacture updates to be done on them.

The Philco 701 & 702 have a major problem with their HV systems.

The Teletone's don't seem to work all that well.

The Motorola probably has the best bang for the buck, Admiral has good quality, Hallicrafters also is a good set from what I've seen.

The Teletone 149 seems like a particularly low end set to me. Although the Motorolas are considered economy models, they seemed to put more effort and design thought into them.

Best picture I have seen on an electrostatic set was on a Motorola 9VT1 I recently restored for someone. The 8-inch CRT made by National Union seems to produce a much nicer picture than a typical 7JP4.

Interesting that you mention that set. I have that one next in line for restoration. I've had it in the closet for years!

Quality: probably the Hallicrafters T-54, but the tuner is a bit buggy. I don't know if I'd vote for it, or maybe the Philco 48-700 (the big heavy one; not the tombstone)

Charles

The 7" Emerson is a good performer. It has better than average picture, lots of audio, sync stability and a Standard tuner. It is a compact, good looking set. It does all this with 125 volts B+, making it more reliable, and it runs on AC and DC power. Wiring style is typical Emerson-sloppy, but it doesn't affect performance.

"Best" is a judgment call, but I put it the top five.

Am I the only one who owns a National TV-7? I think it's at least as good as my Hallicrafters 505, although I've never done a side-by-side comparison. The National's construction quality is noticeably better, although that may not necessarily translate to better performance.

Phil Nelson

Best picture I have seen on an electrostatic set was on a Motorola 9VT1 I recently restored for someone. The 8-inch CRT made by National Union seems to produce a much nicer picture than a typical 7JP4.

There were also a couple of 10" jugs (10GP4, 10HP4) with electrostatic deflection and the same base connection pattern as the 7JP4... I suspect these could have looked quite good, but I know of no set that used them.

The early DuMont Sets used electrostatic deflection as well; 14AP4, 20AP4. :eek:

jr

With the respect to the difficulty getting a Sentinel running with all the revisions, I have to say a restored 7" Sentinel showed the best picture I've ever seen on an electrostatic set. Plus, the same basic signal chassis used in the trapezoidal sets was used by Sentinel in larger sets up to 16". I can personally attest that this chassis makes a nicely detailed image on a 12" tube.

Although the chassis can make some difference, my opinion is that the CRT is the main thing that matters. That's where I found the 8" tube from National Union to be quite superior. Picture in same general league as a 10BP4. Never seen a 7JP4 do that.

The early DuMont Sets used electrostatic deflection as well; 14AP4, 20AP4. :eek:

jr

Imagine the noise it made when you dropped one of those!!

A 20 inch electrostatic tube. Think of the high voltage stage and deflection amplifiers! Talk about "reach out and touch"!

With the respect to the difficulty getting a Sentinel running with all the revisions, I have to say a restored 7" Sentinel showed the best picture I've ever seen on an electrostatic set. Plus, the same basic signal chassis used in the trapezoidal sets was used by Sentinel in larger sets up to 16". I can personally attest that this chassis makes a nicely detailed image on a 12" tube.
The Sentinel was kind of impressive with the transformer powered twin chassis setup. Never saw one work, but it looks like a good performer.

Best picture I have seen on an electrostatic set was on a Motorola 9VT1 I recently restored for someone. The 8-inch CRT made by National Union seems to produce a much nicer picture than a typical 7JP4.

My 9VT1 has a national union CRT which I am not sure if it is original. It makes a great picture. At moderate brightness and contrast levels it looks quite good and the 8 inch round screen is quite watchable even across the living room. I need to replace the grille cloth on mine, get the correct knobs and touch up the cabinet finish so it can look as good as it works. The CRT in my set did develop a heater to cathode short after a few years of regular use post restoration. I used my BK CRT tester to remove the short and no problems since. I may install retrace line suppression although with the digital converter boxes this is much less of a problem. The 9VT1 is a very good set in my opinion. With the glass screen cover, wood cabinet and cloth grille it looks good anywhere and is proving to be quite a dependable performer. There is a really sad looking example of this set on Ebay right now. It may be worth getting just for the CRT.