Quote:
Originally posted by Chad Hauris
I think Zenith and Magnavox did a better job with these kind of TV-Phono consoles by using power tuning controls at the set and concealing the knobs or by putting them up in a top compartment so that all you see on the front is the screen. This french provinicial console just looks like someone stuck a table model RCA CTC 16 in the cut out area. (Now don't get me wrong I really do like the RCA's, but Zenith and Mag. made better looking large consoles).
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I agree 100 percent, Chad. Today's TVs are being designed with no knobs, dials, etc. on the front panel, so we have come full circle on this issue. My own RCA CTC185 is an example. The set is in a very dark-color cabinet; the six pushbuttons that control volume up/down, channel up/down, menu and power on/off are the only controls to be seen. In fact, these buttons are practically invisible with the set on and only one other light on in the room (or in the dark), so all one ordinarily sees is the screen. The same buttons are duplicated on the remote. This design, IMO, makes the set a lot nicer to look at, especially if you put the TV in an entertainment-center cabinet or on a wood stand finished to match the rest of your furniture.
I agree with all comments made here regarding the appearance of the white French Provincial cabinet of that CTC16 3-way console. I would never have furniture like that in my apartment, let alone a TV of the same color. (My furniture is all dark wood; everything matches everything else. Wouldn't have it any other way.)
I said I liked the looks of the light-through channel selectors on RCA's CTC16, but that was about all I liked about that console. I nearly laughed out loud, however, when I read Anthony's comment about the image of a rich woman decked out in jewelry, with a poodle in her lap, barking commands at her servants, etc., all the while watching soap operas or old movies, etc. on a TV in that style of cabinet (and with the remote close at hand, of course).
If that particular set were to have been offered by RCA dealers in, say, a mahogany or cherry wood (or even oak or maple) cabinet, the appearance of the entire TV, including the light-through channel selectors, would have been much more attractive in most living rooms with dark or medium wood furniture, not to mention the fact the company probably would have sold more of these sets than they did.
Come to think of it, RCA may have offered that model in several different cabinet styles, as most manufacturers (including Magnavox) did when large 3-way entertainment center consoles were in style. If they offered this console only in white French Provincial, I doubt if they would have sold very many of them; maybe that style didn't sell well after all, even when such furniture styling was in vogue in this country.
BTW, I didn't think about the possibility of that small hole under the UHF tuner being for a remote-control sensor. The size of the opening is what threw me; it looked to me to be just the right size for a thin control shaft, which is why I immediately leaped to the conclusion that a shaft for the volume control and/or power switch may have been broken off or missing.