Rca and Zenith from 1st to worst

[oldtvman]

back in the day it was a constant battle between the big two Rca 1st and Zenith 2nd. those days are now long gone Today's rca and zenith are both a piece of junk. Rca consistantly tanks on the consumer reports reliabilty issue. Please appreciate the quality built into these classic pieces. You'll never see it again

[RVonse]

Yes it is sad. Zenith was probably proved to be the best brand but even they succumbed to competitive pressures and went south. Seems like everything else in the U.S. is going the same way too unfortunately. Lets face it, our manufacturing industries are in a shambles. We lost the electronics battle long ago, Ford and GM are no longer that big (compared to Toyota anyway) and Chrylser is now a foreign company. We are no longer number one in the aircraft industry either, Boeing has taken a back seat to Airbus. Airbus just came out with a jumbo jet that is going to put Boeing's 747 completely out of the business.

Other than computer software (Microsoft) and farming, I can't think of anything else the U.S. does well anymore, its really kind of depressing if you think about it.

[reeferman]

Having worked at an independent tv shop in the late '60s, I would generally concur with the thread's title. When it came to roundies, Zenith by far was a better set: picture wise and ease of service. A lot of our business came from the poor side of town, and I was astonished by what used to crawl, fly, slither, or jump out of tv's when the back was removed. Cockroaches in Zeniths would generally cause a short between soldered points (lugs). Use compressed air to blow them out of the set, fire it up, and it would usually work. I remember one set had a horrible (horrible) smell to it. When The back was removed, the source was traced to a dead/decomposed mouse stuffed underneath the electrolytics. The boss gave me an extra hours pay to clean it up. I got everything out, fired it up, and by golly, it worked! No damage done. The RCA sets usually sustained more damage when exposed to similar foreign objects. The exterminator was a regular to the shop. I know there were cases where we had to call him in after a set was opened. It was incredible how many cockroaches could hide inside a set!! The boss wasn't afraid to tack on the cost of the exterminator either.

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by RVonse

Lets face it, our manufacturing industries are in a shambles. We lost the electronics battle long ago, Ford and GM are no longer that big (compared to Toyota anyway) and Chrylser is now a foreign company.

Yeah but it's not like Ford and GM are pure red white and blue anymore. they are mostly GREEN. Big worldwide multinational corporations.
Found it funny that when Mercedes bought Chrysler, at first they got all huffy that the Chrysler unit was losing money while Mercedes was moving up and raking it in. Now it's the opposite, the Chrysler end is making tons of dough and Mercedes is the money loser. Well I thought it was funny anyway...Frenchy

[NowhereMan 1966]

The last main daily watcher TV set we bought was in early 1983, a 25" Zenith System 3 made in December of 1982. Still in use as we speak, got local Pittsburgh news on as I type this. We had it serviced in 1999, back then, our repairman said the CRT is showing it's age a little but the picture is still good. I remember every once in a great while, it did have a little bit of a red screen , I remember posting here about it but except for those few times, it behaves quite well and hasn't done it for a couple of months. All I can say is "from my keyboard to God's monitor" but I'll keep praying, I love this set, been watching it since my sophomore year in high school and will be celebrating it's 23rd birthday this year. I look on the back and is says, "Zenith Radio Corporation."

<<Zenith was probably proved to be the best brand but even they succumbed to competitive pressures and went south.>>

There is more than meets the eye to this statement from RVonse. The last time I saw a TV set with the Zenith name on it, it was made in Mexico. Very sad.

[Chad Hauris]

I think RCA may have been tops in sales back then but I would hardly say the technical quality was astounding. Now, I really like the styling of RCA's but there were a lot of problems where it seemed they cheaped out on materials on their tube sets leading to burned wiring, flyback failure, etc.
Zenith was more conservatively and solidly built and had more features for ease of service.

Let's not get into the politics of USA/vs. foreign manufacture, that subject is really beyond the scope of this forum.

[oldtvman]

as a tv shop owner for over 15 years, unfortunately, Rca buttered my bread much more than any other brand on the market. I watched my beloved Rca stoop to levels i never thought possible. When they went to the surface mount tuners, almost every one of them failed due to solder problems. I guess i'll keep my two ctc 9's running and finish restoring my ctc 5 wingate model.

[Sandy G]

Stupid question-Why would cockroaches want to live in a TV ? Did they eat the insulation on the wires? -Sandy G.

[rcaman]

it is warm in the back of a tv. we to have had our share of roaches come into my shop. i have been an rca dealer for over 25 years. rca is still a good set. they build some of the best crt,s anywhere. but you have to think about how many tv,s rca sells. that is why you see many of them in the shop. they sell millions. i will still put a properly adjusted rca up against many high priced sets.
and yes rca has made me a good living through the years. and that dont count the dss we sold. i was one of their first dss dealers.

[bgadow]

While RCA had its share of clinkers mostly they built a good product. I have had personal experience with RCA's from every decade up until the 90s, mostly good. I can't say if anything was as well put together as a 60s Zenith but my background is limited. At this time I don't know of any RCA dealers left anywhere around here. The biggest independent shop around is now with "Brand Direct" so he carries all kinds of makes. The little shop in town has some Zenith & Magnavox sets but I don't think he's a dealer per se, just buys them from another shop to resell.

[NIPPERTHEDOG]

Buying public wants cheap sets and doesn't appreciate in large part, something built to last. I remember last generation of wood console tvs in Gemco before they closed (around 1984). You paid a premiun for the quality and the cabinet. I saw a nice working RCA Colsole Tv 27" with wood cabinet(1983)in my area just sit in second hand store with no interest in it for only 50 bucks. I'm sure that's why there's a disposal charge for TVs in CA since TVs are throw aways now.

[Fisherdude]

Not to defend manufacturers who prostitute quality for profit, but the tv business has changed radically in the last 20 years, even more so than during the shift from tubes & point-to-point wiring to solid state.

TV's used to be very expensive, and were meant to be kept for a long period of time and repaired. The technology remained stable for, essentially, decades.

Now, the technology changes so rapidly, (think s-video in/out, component video connections, cable/vcr/dvd/picture-in-picture, not to mention HT, etc.), that a tv that's only a few years old doesn't have the features that new tv's have, so if it fails the customer will naturally choose to buy a new tv with all the bells & whistles and toss the old one.

Thus, tv's have become disposable items, like computers & printers, which means price drives everything, and manufacturers build them with the understanding that many, many of them will be junked instead of repaired.

Bottom line, current manufacturers are perfectly capable of building sets that will last, and are repairable. That would make them more expensive, which means that you need to keep them for a while to amortize that up-front purchase cost, which means you'll have an old tv that won't have what every new set will have in 2008, which means you'll be unhappy, which probably means you won't do that again.

Doncha just love stream-of-consciousness run-on sentences!

Anyway, that means all the lovers of vintage tv's really should keep and cherish their babies, because we probably won't see the likes of them again.

[mbates14]

man, the last time I seen a Zenith TV, i took a sledge hammer to it.

one of those mid 90's piece of crap rotten picture tube models. EWWW, the most disgusting picture I ever seen. They really do need to revise thier slogan "The name goes on before the quality goes in".

its a wonder how some of those newer picture tubes are. I took a TV set that had color bleed badly, left it outside in subzero temperatures all winter, go to plug it in recently, and it works great. Go figure.

[Jeffhs]

I have a Thomson-built RCA color TV which I bought new in 1999. Works great on digital cable (through a set-top box); also makes a great picture with my VCR and DVD player. No problems at all with the set itself as far as chassis faults are concerned, although I did have some problems in the beginning with the RF port snapping off the tuner PC board. The technician resoldered the ground points all around the tuner shield after replacing the connector; no more trouble with anything else after that, and it's been about three or four years since the repair. The TV still has its original CRT as well. I see this set working well for at least a few more years at this point, even after all analog TV has been abandoned in favor of digital (at the end of next year, if we are to believe the stuff we read in the papers, on the Web, and in the news). Speaking of digital TV, I'm waiting for the larger flat-panel sets to drop below $500 before I get one. I realize I can get a Magnavox 15" LCD FP at Circuit City or Best Buy for $350 or so now, but I'd just as soon get an LCD flat-panel at least as big or bigger than my present CRT set when I finally do replace it. Until then, I'll likely be using my RCA with a set-top box; there is, IMO, no sense in chucking out a perfectly good TV with an excellent picture just because Hollywood is making so much noise about the end of analog TV in 18 months or so.