Magnavox First Color TV

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by Firebird

Hey guys i found it. Here is an ad for the first color magnavox.

That is probably not an ad but rather a picture from, perhaps, a magazine article describing planned upcoming color TV sets. The set in the picture is a "clone" of an RCA CTC-4, as described here:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/rca_ctc_clone.html

[Steve D.]

The Magnavox photo is from Popular Science Monthly magazine from October, 1955. Color tv article.

-Steve D.

[Firebird]

Did Magnavox produce any of those tvs.

[W3XWT]

We had a mid-60's Maggotbox in the rec room of my college dorm back in 1978. When the flyback smoked a few weeks into the fall semester, it took the college's contractor almost to Christmas to get a replacement. It didn't look too bad. I mostly watched it for "Addams Family" reruns on WWBT-12 and "M*A*S*H" reruns on WDVM-9. The college trapped-out WTVR-6 for local origination with the other 11 channels split between the Washington and Richmond stations.

Why did I watch so little TV in college? My college had a 13:1 female to male ratio...

[Tom S]

I had a 1968 Magnavox. My first color set. 23" rectangle. Not a bad set but a pain to keep it going. Even had Instant on feature.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Tom S

I had a 1968 Magnavox. My first color set. 23" rectangle. Not a bad set but a pain to keep it going. Even had Instant on feature.

Everyone thought Magnavox was a higher quality product, but me. I really do like their tube amplifiers. Even their later solid state stereos sounded good.

[TV Engineer]

The first color set Magnavox manufactured was the U45 series chassis, a 21" round color in 1964. The chassis was used in the following year's sets with a rectangular tube, and was the U904 chassis.

While it used RCA patented circuitry, it was far superior to RCA's color sets. It used better quality PC boards, and seemed to stand up to the heat better. I also feel that it had a better picture. It also had AFC on some versions... something RCA did not.

I know there are a lot of RCA fans here, but after 31 years in the electronics industry, I have to say Magnavox made a superior TV and radio chassis, and their record changers were in a class by themselves.

[holmesuser01]

Originally Posted by TV Engineer

The first color set Magnavox manufactured was the U45 series chassis, a 21" round color in 1964. The chassis was used in the following year's sets with a rectangular tube, and was the U904 chassis.

While it used RCA patented circuitry, it was far superior to RCA's color sets. It used better quality PC boards, and seemed to stand up to the heat better. I also feel that it had a better picture. It also had AFC on some versions... something RCA did not.

I know there are a lot of RCA fans here, but after 31 years in the electronics industry, I have to say Magnavox made a superior TV and radio chassis, and their record changers were in a class by themselves.

I agree. I did Magnavox dealer service for alot of years, and worked on alot of the older tube color sets. Other than flybacks being hard to find sometimes, they rarely gave trouble... unlike the RCA's, that ate 6GH8's

[Electronic M]

The first Magnavox branded color set I know of was a 1955 CTC-4 clone/rebadge (I have the Sam's folder) with virtually no difference between it and the RCA CTC-4 Director. The major difference was that(since RCA's audio stage was part of the power supply) Magnavox left the CTC-4 audio output stage disconnected from the speaker and took a lower level audio feed from the TV chassis and fed it to their own(quite nice BTW) audio chassis then to the speakers.

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Magnavox left the CTC-4 audio output stage disconnected from the speaker and took a lower level audio feed from the TV chassis and fed it to their own(quite nice BTW) audio chassis then to the speakers.

Interesting, they did the same thing to a high end 1955 B&W set that I had.

Their Amps from that era are top notch and sought after today by Audio types.

[Firebird]

Does anyone have a fifties Magnavox color tv?

[Tim]

I don't have a 50's Maggie color but here is my U45 Chassis set. Dated 9/65 and found at an estate sale sitting in the corner where it probably had been since Christmas of 65. The cabinet is in like new condition except for a crack in the plastic control panel. It was missing most of the tubes though. I imagine someone took them out to test years ago and never put them back. The 21FBP22A Hi-Lite tested strong on all guns. I stuffed it with tubes and brought it up on the variac. The filters stayed cool and after a quick convergence it displayed a great picture with excellent sound from 2 6x9 speakers.

[mstaton]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Magnavox left the CTC-4 audio output stage disconnected from the speaker and took a lower level audio feed from the TV chassis and fed it to their own(quite nice BTW) audio chassis then to the speakers.

My '63 CTC-15 clone is exactly the same way. The audio board is quite bare, only 1 tube. It has the other 2 sockets but no supporting components. It is fed into the preamp and then to the audio amp. I guess these single ended 6BQ5 amps are pretty sought after. They are supposedly class "A" but don't quote me on that.

[tvcollector]

It's kind of neat to see that Magnavox didn't really change the chassis and the style when going to rectangular CRTs.. That Magnavox in Tim's post doesn't look that much different than the one posted in this craigslist ad.

http://detroit.craigslist.org/mcb/zip/3025185758.html

[Tom S]

My first color set was a 1968 Magnavox I got from the shop I worked at in 1974. Needed an alignement an a good set up. Wasn't too bad but it got me by till I found a better set.