What brand do you think made the best Japanesee tv sets?
Here is my top 3:
1) "Sony"
2) "Hitachi"
3) "Panasonic" ("National-Panasonic")

I agree on Sony; at least through the 80s. However, 1990s I'd turn to Toshiba. Certainly more reliable and easier to troubleshoot than 90s Sony sets.

Charles

Accidental double-post; sorry

Charles

What brand do you think made the best Japanesee tv sets?
Here is my top 3:
1) "Sony"
2) "Hitachi"
3) "Panasonic" ("National-Panasonic")

1. Panasonic (National-Panasonic)

2. Toshiba

3.Sony

Busting open quite a few televisions over the years I used to see all Matsushita/Nippondenso parts in Panasonic. I like Matsushita/Nippondenso
parts, and evdiently so does Sony because many of their parts were of that brand. I think that they would have used all Matsushita/Nippondenso parts
if they could have afforded them. I as well like CE and Elna, but ye ole blacky works for me.

Sony TVs were definitely the rare and hard to find TVs until the 90's. When I was growing up I picked up lots of RCA, Zenith, and Magnavox TVs, but only a few Sonys. Most of the Sonys worked as found, but had weak CRTs, so it took forever for me to get one for myself.

The 70's Zeniths usually only needed basic repairs and adjustments. The RCAs usually needed more work and sometimes had some really confusing problems.

Toshiba was good in the 70's. but their 80's sets tended to run way too hot and burn holes in the boards. They were much better in the mid to late 90's, but now they're made by Orion. I wouldn't take a new Toshiba if you paid me.

...

I'd have to say Sony. The models known for weak CRTs are pretty much out of circulation by now. Many of the Sony sets I find only have dry joints. Panasonics are also pretty good, but I've seen quite a few 90s Panasonics with bad CRTs.

I liked some of the earlier Hitachi sets, but their late 80s-90s sets (at least the models sold here) are completely useless without their remotes and I've yet to find a universal that works properly on them.

JVC sets used some odd designs and tended to have bizarre faults. I once had a high end JVC from 89 with a weird vertical fault that I couldn't work out. I held on to it until I found 2 more of the exact same model. When they both had the exact same fault I gave up and scrapped all 3.

Up until the mid 80s or so NEC sets were assembled here and sold under the Rank Arena brand. AWA did the same with Mitsubishi. Strangely enough I picked up a 90s Sharp the other day that is marked assembled in Australia.

Why aren't NEC, Mitsubishi, Orion, and Funai in the list? They are Japanese brands.

I have a Pioneer Monitor I bought back in 92. It's been outstanding in every way and still going strong. It's been head and shoulders above all the other TVs I've owned

Best Japanese TV sets, for CRT picture quality? Sony. Nothing else has ever come close, even up through the HDTV era. They were also always the most reliable, up until the late 1980's, then that changed. (Sony finally had to start selling cheap TVs, as most other brands had always done in addition to those brands' good models. Once the XBR line came out in 1985, those were the "traditional" great Sonys and the others were more variable in quality and reliability.)

If there was a competitor to Sony in the 70's/80's, it was Mitsubishi (then sold in the USA as "MGA").

for dr.ido: The 21" sept. 1988 made "Hitachi" that I saw works without the original remote.

Honestly, I would have to say Sony but today they are completely screwed-up.

Almost every Panasonic I've seen from the 70's-90's has worked well with lots of hours or was a simple fix. Hitachis and Toshibas are great too.

Now, one other brand I like for direct-views has always been Sanyo. Very solid tv's and IMO, one of Japan's best.

Honestly, I would have to say Sony but today they are completely screwed-up.

Almost every Panasonic I've seen from the 70's-90's has worked well with lots of hours or was a simple fix. Hitachis and Toshibas are great too.

Now, one other brand I like for direct-views has always been Sanyo. Very solid tv's and IMO, one of Japan's best.

Even the current Sanyo sets are decent for no more than they cost. Much better than some of the other brands currently on the market. I remember the old metal case touch tune Sears sets that were made by Sanyo from the mid '70's through the early '80's. Those usually worked well and were easy to fix.

I hear ya on those older Sanyo's. I had a 1982-3 19" color with the metal woodgrain cabinet. All SS set, never needed any repairs, the CRT lasted forever. I actually dumped it while it still was working (silly move I know) after roughly 20 years. I had not stumbled to AK yet, and figured a Sanyo SS couldn't be worth anything even working. Well, now I know that even though it isn't worth much money, it is still a great TV!

for dr.ido: The 21" sept. 1988 made "Hitachi" that I saw works without the oroginal remote.

It's probably from just before they started to remove the front panel controls. I've had quite a few early 90s Hitachis that had nothing more than power, channel and volume controls on the front panel. Without the remote it is impossible to adjust color/contrast/brightness, select the AV input or set the tuning. Hitachi also seemed to use lots of different remotes. I've got at least 3 Hitachi remotes in my big box of remote controls and none of them have worked on the last couple of Hitachi sets I've had.

It gets annoying when most of the sets that I find do not come with their remotes. For whatever reason some of the junk dealers here never remember to bring the remotes. One week they'll have a van full of TVs, VCRs, DVD players, audio gear, but not a single remote control. Then later they'll bring a van full of furniture and a shopping bag full of orhpan remotes.

Sony is the opposite. I can grab almost any Sony remote and it will operate almost any late 80s-90s (and maybe newer, I haven't found any yet) Sony TV. I was testing a Sony TV I repaired one day when I noticed that the remote was also adjusting my Profeel cube monitor on the other side of the room. Until that day I didn't even know that monitor had a remote control (I had assumed that as it had a control in socket it was intended to be controlled by the source it was connected to).

Why aren't NEC, Mitsubishi, Orion, and Funai in the list? They are Japanese brands.

Orion is a Japanese brand? I'd always though they were Chinese/Taiwanese. When did they stop manufacturing in Japan? For some reason pretty much every Orion set I see here is came out of a betting shop and has 15+ years of race information burnt into the CRT. Other than the weak CRT the usually still work, so they're reliable.

I've seen a lot of Funai VCRs, but never a Funai TV.

Proton was Taiwan made , but it was by far the best.
NEC was second....Pioneer monitors were OEM NEC.

Orion is a Japanese brand? I'd always though they were Chinese/Taiwanese. When did they stop manufacturing in Japan? For some reason pretty much every Orion set I see here is came out of a betting shop and has 15+ years of race information burnt into the CRT. Other than the weak CRT the usually still work, so they're reliable.
Yes it is. Last year Orion stopped making products in Japan was in 1990 for the Emerson VCRs and TV combos, and then 1998 completely. They are all made in Thailand now. Orion now makes Toshiba CRT tube TVs, Toshiba DVD/VCR combos, Toshiba LCD TVs sized 23" and under, Toshiba plasma TVs, Sharp LCD TVs sized 32" and under, and Onkyo and Pioneer DVD players.

Back in the mid 80's was my heyday of "home TV repair days" and Sony became my most hated brand. Mostly it had proprietary transistors that only came from Sony at ridiculous prices. I once found a beautiful 17" Trintron for Free that would work for about 15 mins then shut off. I traced it down to the Horz. output transistor. I checked with my local elect. distributer and it was $106 for that 1 part! I threw that Sony into the trash. The second Sony i was given was a 13 trini that had a remote, it worked perfectly, but the remote was missing. This tv was one of the first digital tuning and the set would remember or delete stations by a preset system. somehow you could remove stations by using the tv control panel but you could only add them by using the remote. there was no reset button inside or outside to clear the presets. Somehow someone deleted all stations on it and then lost the remote. i tried unplugging it and waited a week but it didn't work. after these 2 Sony quirks I vowed to never touched another Sony again. I still to this day have never owned another Sony anything!
Logan

You actually don't need a special remote to add channels on those Sonys. Any remote that will let you type in the channel number will work. Just go to each channel you want to add and then press the add button on the TV. The few sets I saw with all the channels deleted needed to have the EEPROM that stores the settings replaced. Sometimes they would get forgetful and you'd gradually lose channels. I consider Sony's system to be a huge advantage over those TVs that lost all the settings when they were unplugged.

The ones that were a problem had the add/delete buttons on the remote. Then you needed an original Sony remote with those buttons.

Back in the mid 80's was my heyday of "home TV repair days" and Sony became my most hated brand. Mostly it had proprietary transistors that only came from Sony at ridiculous prices. I once found a beautiful 17" Trintron for Free that would work for about 15 mins then shut off. I traced it down to the Horz. output transistor. I checked with my local elect. distributer and it was $106 for that 1 part! I threw that Sony into the trash. The second Sony i was given was a 13 trini that had a remote, it worked perfectly, but the remote was missing. This tv was one of the first digital tuning and the set would remember or delete stations by a preset system. somehow you could remove stations by using the tv control panel but you could only add them by using the remote. there was no reset button inside or outside to clear the presets. Somehow someone deleted all stations on it and then lost the remote. i tried unplugging it and waited a week but it didn't work. after these 2 Sony quirks I vowed to never touched another Sony again. I still to this day have never owned another Sony anything!
Logan

Most of the TV shops around here wouldn't touch a Sony with a ten foot pole because of the same reasons you stated. $106 for a HOT is (unprintable)! One TV repair friend of mine thinks Sony is an overpriced, over rated brand that is no better than any other brand. I've got a mid '80's 19" basic mono Trinitron that was given to me by one of those repair shops that didn't work on Sony's. It was a lightning damaged set and it only got the diodes, fuse, and a resistor. I've been watching it for 4-5 years; but, I will not invest much $$ in it if it goes out. I used to find a lot of Sony's when I was a teenager. Some I fixed; but, most got scrapped because of expensive parts or bad CRT's. About a year ago; a guy at my church asked me to look at his 36" WEGA flat screen. The flyback was toast and a new one was well over $200. Oh, and it was on backorder for several months. I convinced the guy to buy a new set and made him remove his piece of junk from my property.

The ones that were a problem had the add/delete buttons on the remote. Then you needed an original Sony remote with those buttons.

I think that was the case with this TV, I had another Sony remote that worked but wouldn't talk to this TV. I only dread to think what a new remote cost for that set.
Thats why I only collect Zenith, Durable, Fixable, Affordable, Great Picture and Beautiful Styling! :yes:
Although I am partial to several Panasonic mini B&W TVs from the 60's Logan

I can't attest to some of the others, but, I bought a Mitsubishi in 1990 (not cheap) and the color is still amazing. One of the buying points was the contrast of the white to color, it was brilliant, and when compared to other sets at the time, it made their white look blue. It still functions perfectly allthough the brightness has faded some, foretelling the demise of a great TV.

Thats why I only collect Zenith, Durable, Fixable, Affordable, Great Picture and Beautiful Styling! :yes:
Although I am partial to several Panasonic mini B&W TVs from the 60's Logan

Zenith had their problems in the mid 80's too. Does anyone remember when they used a flat membrane keypad on the control door? I don't think I ever saw one of these with a keypad that still worked. Often some buttons would stop working and sometimes they would intermittently short. I had a 20" that would change to channel 7 on its own until I disconnected the keypad. The channel add/delete buttons were on the keypad, so I had to add every channel before I disconnected it. Then there were the sets with the chromatic button on the door keypad. If it was turned on before the keypad failed, there was no way to adjust the color even though the color buttons were on the set itself and still worked.

Sorry about the confusion, the Sony TV's i worked on in the 80's were made in the late 70's or earlier. The Mid-80's was the beginning of the end for all home electronic repair, Most everything was starting to be sold cheap, be outdated in 4 years, and never be repaired except for VCRs which had to cleaned and idler wheels replaced. Logan

I've had a bad experience with Sony sets - failed CRTs. I've had one that had a red cast, I've also seen a 26-incher with a green cast, as well as the various Trinitron monitors everywhere I see. Oddly the one I picked from the dump recently had a good CRT, but a pincushioning issue - which was manageable.

Sanyo, Funai and Orion sets last a good while without issues - except they're blander in case design. Except for that one time I saw an early-90s Emerson that won't turn off. Pressing the power button just shows the OSD, then pressing it again makes the OSD disappear. I had an U.S.-assembled NEC set from the late 80s with dry joints near the tuner audio output, which was the reason a neighbor of mine curbed it - but image quality was not bad.

I do like Zenith sets, they've got character as well as insane features like the Space Phone. Attach a visual caller ID display thingy to the telly and you won't have to leave your seat. :D

I know that Sony will likely "take" this poll as they make very nice TVs (we have one), but I must say that the Panasonic electronic products that I have had over the years (VCRs, Radios, TVs) have done quite well.

In 1985, after an inherited TV died horribly, I purchased a little 12 inch portable Panasonic color TV at the now defunct Caldor's here in CT. I think that I paid $140 for it. It had a good clear color picture, it was cheap, and I could carry it out the door...done deal.

Since 1985, this little Panasonic has been dropped twice, moved numerous times and the picture is STILL as good as the day I bought it 22 years ago (I even used it for a while as a color "monitor" with my venerable Commodore 64 computer :nerd: ). Knock on wood, I have never spent another penny on it. I have always used "bunny-ears" with it and it has a strong little tuner.

Back in the mid 80's was my heyday of "home TV repair days" and Sony became my most hated brand. Mostly it had proprietary transistors that only came from Sony at ridiculous prices. I once found a beautiful 17" Trintron for Free that would work for about 15 mins then shut off. I traced it down to the Horz. output transistor. I checked with my local elect. distributer and it was $106 for that 1 part! I threw that Sony into the trash. The second Sony i was given was a 13 trini that had a remote, it worked perfectly, but the remote was missing. This tv was one of the first digital tuning and the set would remember or delete stations by a preset system. somehow you could remove stations by using the tv control panel but you could only add them by using the remote. there was no reset button inside or outside to clear the presets. Somehow someone deleted all stations on it and then lost the remote. i tried unplugging it and waited a week but it didn't work. after these 2 Sony quirks I vowed to never touched another Sony again. I still to this day have never owned another Sony anything!
Logan

The sets you are referring to a are probably older than the ones that I usually encounter, but I haven't found Sony sets to be any more fussy about their horizontal output transistors than any other set. The rule here is to fix sets using parts available from junk chassis (which usually come from sets with bad CRTs, bad flybacks or some other part that I didn't have on hand). For the most part it simply isn't worth ordering parts anymore. Any set that needs a horizontal output transistor usually leaves with something different than what it came in with. I have one 14" Sony set that has a problem remembering presets sitting in the to-be-junked-next-time-I-clean-up pile, but I'm pretty sure the problem is with the microcontroller IC (it's a non remote set) and for a 14" set it's not worth spending anymore time on it.

I used to be an AV supervisor for school districts in the Rochester Area... I voted for JVC because they were always rock solid reliable. Their VCRs were always top notch! Does anyone remember the ultra high end Super VHS VCR JVC (with flying erase heads!) that came out with in the late 80's/early 90's? As a previous poster mentioned, Sony quality went downhill during the early 90's when a lot of manufacturing shifted to Mexico.

When I sold TV's (in the late 80's to the early 90's) I didn't much care for NEC products; Sharp and Sanyo (Fisher) products were cheaper, lower end products just above the quality of Goldstar (now LG) and Samsung.

As far as the major non-Japanese brands went, Phillips line (Magnavox and Sylvania incl.) were fairly mediocre, RCA was, well, RCA and Zenith was well on it's way to becoming an LG brand. Goldstar was in the midst of climbing out of the low end cellar, and steadily improving it's product. As far as the low end went, Daewoo and Funai were starting to be seen more often in Lechmere's "door buster" ads.

I never sold the Emerson/Orion products, nor did I deal with Sampo, Samsung et. al. Our competitors (Kmart, WalMart, Sears) sold those products. I could see the coming shift in the market; I crossed over to the public sector in the early 90's, happy to be finally out of retail.

I still own a couple of Panasonic TVs; I've always found them to be adequate performers but lacking in features (my 32" lacks a built in degaussing element, a constant source of annoyance).

The last Tube I bought was a Toshiba 24", very nice. Still love the Sony picture, but feel, like BOSE, you pay a bit more for the "mystique" of Sony than they're actually worth.
Our main TV watching is done on a Phillips 37" LCD 1080i. On the Cable Company's HD Channels (TW Rochester), the picture is drop dead gorgeous.

And yes, I'd vote for Mitsubishi to be included on the list. My church has a 35" Mitsubishi that is still going strong (forget the model, it's the floor standing model in a spiffy oak cabinet); it must be 20 years old!

For a brief time @ Lechmere (1987 till 1988) we sold a low end version of Zenith under a different brand name (Capeheart?). They had the same membrane buttons, with the same issues.

Zenith had their problems in the mid 80's too. Does anyone remember when they used a flat membrane keypad on the control door? I don't think I ever saw one of these with a keypad that still worked. Often some buttons would stop working and sometimes they would intermittently short...

Phillips sold the Sylvania brand name to Funai; they're AKA Emerson, Symphonic and Durabrand. :Dhttp://www.funai-corp.com/

Why aren't NEC, Mitsubishi, Orion, and Funai in the list? They are Japanese brands.

Dr.Ido you are absolutely right, that's what I would do today if I wanted to restore a vintage Sony. And I'm sure if i had that same set today, with the same H.O.T. that there would be a easy cross reference for it. Since there are the resources of the Internet and AudioKarma. I wish it had existed back in 1985!!! Please pardon my previous rants as I'm a curmudgeon in training. Logan

if i were buying a new tube set i would look no futher than sanyo. most bang for the buck and they are not junk like everything else out there. i have worked on sets for over 25 years and sanyos quality seems to still be there.
steve

All the new Sanyo sets that I have seen lately use slim flat CRTs. I've worked on one of these sets and while the build quality was better than the cheaper sets the picture had an odd look to it. Anything with a slim flat CRT seems to have noticably poorer geometry and corner focus. There's only so much the correction circuits can do as the deflection angle gets higher. I've seen a few other flat CRT sets and while some are better than other they just don't look right to me.

I guess I've been looking at conventional curved CRTs for so long that I can't get used to anything different.

if i were buying a new tube set i would look no futher than sanyo. most bang for the buck and they are not junk like everything else out there. i have worked on sets for over 25 years and sanyos quality seems to still be there.
steve

I bought a Sanyo 27" in 2001 at Wally mart and it's still working with a decent picture. 6 years isn't bad for a $175 TV set. Logan

I might be wrong about this, but I don't think Philips ever "owned" Sylvania-I think they just licensed the name from GTE & later Osram. I can only guess that Philips didn't want to renew the deal and that Osram (which does appear to own the name, and sells Sylvania lighting products) now licenses it to Funai. As for Japanese TV sets, Sony just never did anything for me, at least not with its color sets. I only had one junk Sony back years ago, which had a weird convergence/pincushion problem. I've been impressed with the quality from Panasonic and Sanyo in particular.

Mr Fixer, I beleive the Sony sets you refer too were the ones from the 70's with the word "ECONOQUICK" proudly emblazened on the front under the speaker. Never has there been a larger misnomer in the history of television! The HOT you refer to was probly the SG-603 used in this pos. It is actually a type of scr called a "gate controlled Switch" A dist. in Md at the time would gladely sell you one for $64 + s&h - I bought one and the set played for 10 min. before it smoked one of it's 2!! flybacks. Long enough to see that the crt was crap also. Lesson Learned. Sony has left a bad taste in my mouth ever since. Thay did actually become easier to service going into the 80's though still querky. BTW, I have read some where that the SG-603 could be replaced with a run of the mill plastic case HOT. I run across another one of thse in the future with absolutely nothing else to do, I might just give the NPN HOT a shot - nothing to loose.

BTW, I have read some where that the SG-603 could be replaced with a run of the mill plastic case HOT. I run across another one of thse in the future with absolutely nothing else to do, I might just give the NPN HOT a shot - nothing to loose.

I did it on a 12" and it worked fine with no modifications. I just connected it as a normal BJT HOT would be connected. I would be interested to hear if it's as easy on the larger sets.

Wow, I wonder how Sony could sleep at night, selling a part for $60-$100 that could be replaced with a $10 dollar part.
I feel very lucky to have access to the Internet and AK, being able to chat with other Techies has made my life much better! Logan

Why aren't NEC, Mitsubishi, Orion, and Funai in the list? They are Japanese brands.

Who cares? :boring: