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  #46  
Old 06-23-2004, 01:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Chad Hauris
I recently got a new window air conditioner from Home Depot and it looks like it was made by LG. The perfomance is good...but part of the chassis that goes between the inside evaporator and fan and compressor outside appears to be made of styrofoam! Not even plastic with styrofoam insulation between, just a sheet of styrofoam.
Yeah I bought one of those recently to use up at my camp. and it has the styrofoam like that too. They are just made to be disposible. Hell, I think the unit only cost me a hundred bucks!

Meanwhile, out in my garage, i was attempting to pull the chassis out of this zenith and it looks like a nightmare! I think this time I will just turn the set on it's side and go in thru the bottom of the cabinet! All of the power control switches and lights have their leads soldered instead of using plugs, and some of the tuner is the same way. It looks like yanking this chassis would be a major pain in the ass. Thank God they put that cut-out in the bottom of the cabinet for servicing!

I've also noticed the wording on the right side of this label that makes me think this CRT was repalced. "New electron gun, other materials may not be new" is not usually seen on original crts.
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  #47  
Old 06-23-2004, 01:45 PM
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Was in a classroom the other day and they have what appears to be a very recent (if not brand new) Zenith TV and VCR. Both of which don't actually say Zenith on them, instead they use just the lightning bolt "Z" emblem. Strange.

Color seems decent enough, who knows for sure unless it can be compared to other sets side by side. The amazing thing is how downright awful some new sets are. Go to your local Good Guys/Best Buys/Circuit City etc and take a look. It's not just a matter of different adjustments, it's the sets or brand themselves.

RESEARCH BEFORE YOU BUY! You no longer can be blindly be brand loyal.

Anthony
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  #48  
Old 06-23-2004, 01:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by jstout66
Jason, That is a good question! In my opinion I think most new stuff is junk. but like myself I'm sure most of us have a new "daily watcher" If the Zenith looked good then consider getting it! (with an extended warranty, which with the way stuff is made now I would say that with ALL brands) Anyway... I don't have alot of room in my place so I got a 24" Toshiba flat screen. Had gone with a Sony Wega first, but the picture was crap, and after reading reviews and e-opinions I decided to go with a different brand alltogether. I think Panasonic still puts out pretty good stuff. Everyone is gonna have their own opinion, but my advice is to see what has the best picture and value for the money. I still think the saying "you get what you pay for" still holds true in electronics altho my Sony mistake proved me wrong on that one....
Sony TVs aren't very good at all. Their ES line of recievers are excellent. I have one and I love it. Their everything else isn't that great. At Best Buy there's a 27" Sony right next to a 27" Toshiba flattie. The difference is night and day. The sony seems fuzzy while the Tosh was crisp and clear.

Toshiba seems to be the winner as far as value and picture quality.

The Zenith comes in 2nd plus it's a HD CRT which gives you the benefit of HD in a 27" size. Plus if I buy a Zenith HDTV at Circuit City, I get 12 free months of HDTV service with my cable company.

The Pana came in 3rd as far as pic but it didn't give as much detail as the Zenith/LG.
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  #49  
Old 06-23-2004, 02:11 PM
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Chad Hauris Chad Hauris is offline
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Charlie said: Meanwhile, out in my garage, i was attempting to pull the chassis out of this zenith and it looks like a nightmare! I think this time I will just turn the set on it's side and go in thru the bottom of the cabinet! All of the power control switches and lights have their leads soldered instead of using plugs, and some of the tuner is the same way. It looks like yanking this chassis would be a major pain in the ass. Thank God they put that cut-out in the bottom of the cabinet for servicing!


I am working on a RCA CTC-31 w/remote and it is such a pain to get into the chassis. For one thing, the circuitboards are mounted in such a way that it can be very difficult to get to all of the solder points on them. Also just getting under the chassis is difficult...there are no detatchable plugs to the tuner, and the way the auxiliary control panel is designed makes it hard to tip the chassis up to get under it while it is still in the cabinet.

The more I look at other brands of tube type sets the more I like the Zenith quality. Have never had the 6GH8 color sync drift, the fried flybacks, etc.
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  #50  
Old 06-23-2004, 03:14 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by jasonlava
Sony TVs aren't very good at all. Their ES line of recievers are excellent. I have one and I love it. Their everything else isn't that great. At Best Buy there's a 27" Sony right next to a 27" Toshiba flattie. The difference is night and day. The sony seems fuzzy while the Tosh was crisp and clear.

Toshiba seems to be the winner as far as value and picture quality.

The Zenith comes in 2nd plus it's a HD CRT which gives you the benefit of HD in a 27" size. Plus if I buy a Zenith HDTV at Circuit City, I get 12 free months of HDTV service with my cable company.

The Pana came in 3rd as far as pic but it didn't give as much detail as the Zenith/LG.
Yah. I have 20+ channels on off-air (or would if I had a DT adapter). I would pay for TV but it's a lot like the old daze:

The quality doesn't go in before the show goes on...

I went to a Sears store here. They had a 16:9 HDTV thing for $600??? You should've seen that thing clip the chroma and <BLEED>

Maybe it's all crap
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  #51  
Old 06-23-2004, 05:02 PM
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I've gotta back jason on this one, besides "making" some pretty decent TVs, my sister ended up buying a Zenith DVD/VHS combo unit that not only had some styling to it, but actual useful features and at a good price too. Nary a problem yet-

But that's the question...how many folks rely on the 'new' stuff for daily watching vs. firing up a roundie?
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  #52  
Old 06-23-2004, 05:16 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Cory


But that's the question...how many folks rely on the 'new' stuff for daily watching vs. firing up a roundie?
I fire up the roundie... mainly because i dont have any 'new' stuff.
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  #53  
Old 06-23-2004, 06:19 PM
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If my color roundies were at my current location, I would fire them up without question. The most modern set I have is an RCA colortrak from the mid to late 70's. Then again, I fire up my BW roundie (Andrea) and my restored portables (all 2 of them) and the programming theyt reproduce still sucks.

On the window A/C units, the styrofoam is used for fan shrouds (condenser side) and blower housings (evaporator). As long as the fan blades and squirrel cages don't go out of balance, they should be OK.

As far as the death of Zenith, the quality may not go in before the name goes on anymore, but the old REAL Zeniths are still here and will outlast any junk LG makes.
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  #54  
Old 06-23-2004, 08:51 PM
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Turned the set on its side and was able to change out a small handful of caps this evening, but it really hasn't made any difference. Two of the lytics were for the sound output, but I still have a good healthy hum coming from the speakers. I think another lytic was in in AGC. Don't recall what the 4th one was for.

Turns out that most of the lytics for b+ are 80mfd/475V and 4mfd/450V... there's about 8 of them, so I'll have to go to the parts house tomorrow. Kinda afraid they won't have the 80/475's. I think the highest they have is 80/450, which would probably work, but I don't really want to take that chance.

A few of the lytics had already been changed, and looks like there are some fairly new orange drops in there (but still plently of Blk Beauties to swap).
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  #55  
Old 06-23-2004, 08:55 PM
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old and new ....NTSC and PAL

folks,

I have to say my 1976 Philips produced far better color than my 1999 Sony .....maybe in the "good old days" when colour was an expensive toy, the manufacturers were still interested in quality.

These days it is just about churning them out for the minimum cost. (Especially the no-name brands from China).

One interesting thing for we in non NTSC land ...is that the black levels for NTSC and PAL are different.

My Sony actually often produces better colour from NTSC sources eg: DVDs than many pure PAL sources like off air broadcasts.

This is especially true if you use Sony's presets.

I certainly have to switch settings for NTSC sources to ensure true blacks and to get chroma settings right.
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  #56  
Old 06-23-2004, 11:21 PM
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Last edited by andy; 12-08-2021 at 04:22 PM.
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  #57  
Old 06-24-2004, 06:16 AM
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Chad Hauris Chad Hauris is offline
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I find that the old TV's are good for TV station viewing and some DVD's, but I do use a 1979 Zenith Space command and a 1985 Sony 19" set for some DVD/videotape viewing. The tube type sets often have too much trouble coping with Macrovision.
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  #58  
Old 06-24-2004, 07:10 AM
jstout66 jstout66 is offline
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Chad, We have the SAME sets! (or did). I use a 1979 System 3 space command in the bedroom, and had used a 1985 Sony in the living-room. The picture tube was going out on the Sony so that's when I got the new Toshiba. I remember when VCR's first came out and when we would sell one it would usually follow with a new tv sale because of the "bending" at the top of the screen on the tube sets. I'm still working on trying to get a console tube set for a daily watcher tho...
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  #59  
Old 06-24-2004, 12:37 PM
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I have a 1999 RCA XL-100 as a daily watcher in my living room, and a 1995 Zenith "Sentry 2" 19" set in my bedroom. Both sets have remotes and work well on cable (Comcast digital and analog, respectively); the Zenith has gone almost ten years with no problems at all, while the RCA has had only one small problem in almost five years.

The picture quality of both sets is excellent, especially since Comcast rebuilt its entire system in my small town. The Zenith doesn't get much use right now as I don't watch TV in the bedroom as a rule, but it will become my daily watcher when the RCA eventually goes West (after the extended warranty expires, of course).

Personally, as I have said before, I am amazed and pleased I have not had any CRT or chassis troubles with the Zenith in nearly ten years (this set was made during the period when Zeniths were notorious for catastrophic CRT failures and troublesome chassis designs), but I'm not complaining. That set was my daily watcher from 1995 until 1999, and served me very well during that time. Considering all the problems being reported with the new Zenith branded Gold Star (now LG) sets, I consider myself very lucky to have gotten a mid-'90s Zenith which has been so trouble-free (knock on wood).

BTW, my set has the company name "Zenith" prominently displayed on the front panel, at the top of the control cluster to the right of the CRT. The Z is Zenith's trademark lightning bolt. The computer-generated label on the back of the set with the date and place of manufacture, etc., near the 75-ohm antenna/cable connector, clearly states "Zenith Electronics Corp., Glenview, Ill. 60025", so this set must have been made before Gold Star took over the company. However, the set was manufactured in Mexico, which leads me to believe Zenith already had moved its main plant there by the mid-'90s; the Glenview, Illinois address was likely that of their business and administration offices at the time.
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  #60  
Old 06-24-2004, 03:34 PM
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Last edited by andy; 12-08-2021 at 04:20 PM.
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