Best and Worst Televisions, ever!

[Kamakiri]

This is something we've never done before.....let's hear your thoughts on the best AND worst televisions ever made....be they color or B&W.....get as verbose as you like

Here's my thoughts on the most and least reliable:

Best color TV: Zenith Chromacolor
Worst color TV: Emerson products of the mid 90s

Best B&W: Zenith's mid-60s offerings, RCA "sweet sixteen" portables
Worst B&W: Philco Predicta

Yeah I know the emerson I bought for our home was a piece of shit... I'm a woman what do I know about TV's.

[Eric H]

For the best ever color sets I would have to pick the Sony Trinitron, from the late 60's on till at least the early 90's they set the standard for picture quality that everyone else tried to match but really couldn't till the patent ran out on the Trinitron CRT.
I would single out their XBR line as particularly good.

Hard to argue with the Zenith B&W sets of the 60's, superb build quality, great pictures and frankly I don't think anyone was really trying to build a better B&W TV at that late date.

the little RCA 8" portables from 56-57 are also amazing sets, not so much for the picture quality which is average at best but from an engineering standpoint they are a work of art!
They are a transformer powered, well built, quality TV in a very small package for the time!

The competing General Electrics of the time are junk (but cute junk) by comparison. Obviously aimed at different market segments.

Worst color set, gee there are so many, GE made a particularly nasty set in the 60's, (not a roundie) it used the "KD" chassis as I recall. I actually fixed one up for my Grandmother in the 70's, poor thing must have gone half blind trying to watch that dim crappy thing.

The Predicta is certaintly a nightmare to work on at least, and the bad CRT's...

Someone will probably mention Muntz in this thread I have no first-hand experience with them so I can't comment.

[bgadow]

Hard to argue with the above. On color, my Zenith experience, both roundie and later, has been darned good, at least up through the Chromacolor sets. I can agree on the 60s GE sets-are old family set was, I think, a KE chassis and was actually pretty good, but I've had a couple that were a little older and they were just dismal. One I had as a kid and I finally begged for a bw set to replace it because the picture was so bad.

On bw sets, I have not had a 60s Zenith although have heard many say they were tops. Generally I've found good performance from Admirals and earlier Philcos but I just can't get a Philco from the mid to late 50s (Predicta especially) to give me what I consider a good picture.

[Big Dave]

I can only respond with the sets I have worked on or have in my collection.

BEST TUBE COLOR:

Zenith (round and rectangular). These have worked well after, and even before servicing. The pictures, to me, are slightly dimmer than their RCA counterparts. I want more.

RCA (round). Good performers, despite the shitty PC boards. I feel the pics on RCA roundies blow away the crap on the market today.

BEST SOLID STATE OR HYBRID COLOR:

Sylvania D series (hybrid).

RCA XL 100 (first generation)

Zenith Chromacolor (first generation)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

RCA tube rectangular color. If it weren't for the fact that the CRT's died early, these would be in the best catagory.

Zenith hybrid and SS. If it weren't for the safety caps going bad and the contacts on the modules being a bitch to keep clean, they would be in the other catagory.

WORST TUBE COLOR:

Anything made by GE. The only thing GE is good for is light bulbs.

RCA series string portables. I never could get them working like their transformer counterparts.

WORST SOLID STATE OR HYBRID COLOR:

All the new stuff.

GE, pre RCA rape and pillage.

Most of the Japanese makes, until now.

BEST TUBE BW:

Andrea. I feel the restoration of my CVL-16 turned out nice. It is a very watchable set.

Any Zenith from the porthole days to the end of the 1960's.

RCA

Admiral made a lot of nice sets (just scored one)

Philco (excluding the Predicta and before Ford bought them)

WORST TUBE BW:

GE, although I wouldn't mind having one for my collection.

I have a Sylvania (SAMS set 500) that I'm not impressed with.

WORST BW SOLID STATE:

I have none to list since I haven't had many for too long.


There are others I have but didn't list, since they are not restored and I have no feelings either way yet.

[wa2ise]

Worst color TV: Emerson products of the mid 90s

Those are not true Emersons. Some Asian outfit bought the Emerson name and slaps it on stuff from China and such places. True Emersons came from Jersey City NJ.

I have a Motorola portable B&W that sucks. Awful horizontal sync circuits.

I had an RCA CTC101. That model had the infimious intergrated flyback transformer (high voltage winding was in sections, with diodes between sections). Aside from that, it was a good set.

[tom1356]

The Sony XBR 200 series 27" and 32" were the best consumer TV's I have ever seen.

[Sandy G]

Yep. I think the Sony Trinitrons were & are the best of the color sets-especially when they first came out. Their little 5" B&Ws were pretty good, too, I had one from Xmas '63 til the summer of '69. The WORST TV in my view, had to be a Sears color blivvit they marketed in the mid '60s. Thing would sometimes go kerflooey B4 the serviceman got out of sight. We had one of the 1st Portacolors & it was a good reliable performer, if not the best picture. -Sandy G.

[mhardy6647]

Not sure what your criteria are, Tim :-) Video? Color? Ruggedness? Design? Elegance (electronically, I mean)?

My father is a retired TV repairman. I can tell you his favorites were the RCA CTC-16 and CTC-25 chassis.

[Kamakiri]

Basically whatever stands out in your mind that you'd like to share

[jstout66]

in my experiance from the time frame of working in my Uncles shop (late 70's to mid 80's) Best early tube color sets were Zenith and RCA. Worst were GE and Motorola tube sets. They had a lousy picture and were a pain in the ass to work on. Best early solid state was Zenith and Sylvania GT-matic's. Worst:Early RCA XL-100's weren't very good performers, along with the Motorola "works in a drawer" On those Motorola's the panels were expensive and they never had an outstanding picture. One of the worst sets we carried new on the sales floor were the early 80's GE with "VIR" Good pictures, but those pieces of crap would break on the sales floor! As a consumer now, I would have to say on new sets, that Apex are pure junk, and I don't know what is going on with Sony, but I returned my Wega after a week!

[Charlie]

Originally posted by Big Dave

Anything made by GE. The only thing GE is good for is light bulbs.

I think General Electric makes damn good toaster-ovens also! When it comes to televisions, I always thought GE's were pretty low on the food chain and would never buy one. Although, I have to stand up for one in particular. My grandparents have a GE color console that's nearly 20 years old, and it surprisingly still is like brand new. Makes a great picture and has been completely trouble free. I guess this one was an exception.

The Zenith tube and hybrid B&W portables of the 60's/early70's are great. i have one that I've been watching for years. Other than cleaning out the dust, I haven't done a thing to it. Still has all the Zenith tubes in it.

Interesting reading here, quite a variety of views. Anyway, here is my pick for best and worst based on experience from approximately the mid to late 80's.

Best solid state I've repaired: Would have to be an early 70's Sony I repaired about 8 or 9 years ago. I replaced the horizontal SCR and power supply regulator and gave the CRT a light rejuvenation. After that it played like a million dollars! Awesome color and excellent sharpness. The guy has had it since it was new and he said that was the first service ever needed on it. I talk to him once in a while and he said that set is still going strong.

Worst solid state I've worked on: I think that would have to be one of those GE's with the griplet solder connections. The first shop I worked at we used to get truck loads of those. They played good once they were fixed though.

Best tube set I have worked on: Maybe I am a little partial to Zenith but the "boat anchor" metal cabinet tube Zeniths I have fixed all seem to have an outstanding picture and color. Apparently, they are very durable too. Once in a great while I still run across one and repairs are usually quite simple like a HO tube or damper.

Worst tube set: I have worked on a few of those wood coffin looking table model Magnavox tube sets. Generally good color and picture but the sets I have worked on seem to have numerous bad solder connections. One I can remember having to spend an hour or two just soldering cold solder connections on the PC board.

Jeff

[Carmine]

I think the proof is in the trash.

What I'm saying is, about the only color tube-type sets that I still see on trash day are Zeniths. More than once, I've brought them home, plugged 'em in, and they work. More than likely they were just tossed because somebody got sick of tripping over them. Same holds true for Zenith B&W sets.

The rugged steel chassis and console-style power transformer made their Chromacolor I & II color sets far from portable, but once you put them down, the pictures are often better than the chinese garbage that's 25-30 years newer.

When I used to fix sets as a kid, (I'm no expert, just good enough to swap parts, solder, etc.) the most frequent fault was cracked PC boards. Even though Zenith eventually switched to PC boards, they still framed the modules in steel. Others simply relied on the strength of the actual PC board, and of course we know what a disaster that idea often was.

I will give Sony their props for the Trinitron, but in terms of physical appearance, their sets were about as stylish as a 1980 Datsun. They had a cluttered look, more like they were a collection of parts, rather than anything that was "styled". For this reason, no matter how good they may have performed, they'll probably never be collectable. In fact, I think their biggest impact was probably their "halo effect" on the Asian electronics industry. (I know the proper term would be Japanese, but let's be honest, most Americans see no difference in cultures/prodcuts from Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, etc.)

Sony products rightly deserved their good reputations, but other poorly designed brands from the 70s/80s (Hitachi, Gold Star, among many) churned out some real crap, but were able to ride the reputation of Sony in much the same way as people think of all Japanese cars as reliable (because of Toyota) while forgetting that terrible engines nearly bankrupted Mazda in the early 70s. (Would have, if not for an infusion of cash from Ford.)

I will say that my (formerly my parents) 1990 27" Zenith has been an excellent performer since new, with only one service done a few months ago (Power supply caps from Capt' Moody). Picture is still excellent after a decade of daily use. I do believe that this was likely the end of the line for Zenith quality however, as my parents recommended Zenith sets for two relatives in the mid-90s. Both of these had failed CRTs by 2000.

Captain Moody recently gave me a rather unremarkable '77 19" Chromacolor. Nothing too interesting about this entry-level-color set beyond its excellent picture. I kinda don't know what to do with it??? I was thinking this might be the one to keep in a bomb shelter with some canned food, flashlights and a shotgun. With this TV and a 318 Mopar, I could probably ride out the next 50 years without parts.

[drh4683]

From experience, the best tvs ever built, including outstanding picture quality is anywhere from 1960-1973 zenith b/w sets, in perticular, those with metal cabinets. I have run across hundreds of these sets, and I cant pick everyone of them up, as I would be completely jammed here! but you know, those sets ALWAYS work, and most of the time, PERFECT! Those zenith b/w sets have the most razor sharp picture. For you big sony triniton fans, they are like watching a trinitron without color!
Color sets, obviously more problems to deal with, none (even zeniths) are as reliable as those zenith b/w sets.

I hate solid state sets, so I'll only talk about tube/ hybrid sets, as most of those have excellent picture to begin with.
RCA Victor color tv has outstanding picture, vivid colors, but unfortunatly, no built anything close to a zenith. Zenith however, best TVs built, great pictures, but rca tends to beat them out on the color quality and color saturation.
Just as an interesting note, as much as zeniths are built so well, I always thought they could have done a better job with the "feel" of the VHF tuner, some tend to feel weak and flimsy (age and usage is considered here) but rca tuners always felt better to me, a nicer solid "klunk" like the ctc16, 19, 27 for example. The UHF tuners in zeniths are nowhere near as good as rca, unless the zenith had "gyro" UHF tuner.
Sensitivity is better in RCA, thanks to the 6DS4 low noise triode nuvistor used as the rf amp.
RCA will be critisized for using the lousy 6GH8 which is nothing but trouble. Zeniths tend to be pretty good with tubes, unless its a 6JU8 quad diode in color sets.

Basically, the best picture of all the sets in my collection go to my 1972 zenith 20CC50 20" table set with steel cabinet construction. Outstanding picture quality, excellent color tones. This tv is my daily watcher, and has been since april of 03. This zenith has none of the other complaints I mentioned , it has a turret tuner, gyro drive UHF (quick smooth UHF tuning, on a flywheel). illuminated dials. I would say it would be hard to beat the picture on this tv with anything else of the tube type/hybrid sets.