I found one on Craigslist and will be picking it up on Tuesday. Very nice looking. Anybody familiar with this 1984 Sanyo AVM-258? Is it a well-built set? Is it more reliable than my RCA CTC-121 chassis?

http://www.prestomart.com/viewitem.php/scannell/pd180794/1984_SANYO_AVM_258_TELEVISION_TV_LG_COLOR_AD_0096-027

I'd say that's a good one to grab. I think the AVM line was their high end series.

I've always been impressed with the quality of Sanyo TV's. Even the ones made in the past few years seem to be good quality for the money. Even the old 19" metal cabinet Sanyo built Sears sets from the '70's would still give a good picture after 20-25 years of use. It's rare to find a bad CRT in a Sanyo set. Most of the ones that I repair have the usual failures like bad vertical output IC's, shorted HOT's, power supply problems, etc.

The main thing I didn't like about mid '80's Sanyo's is that some of them had a weird vertical output module that consisted of surface mount parts. They were bad about having loose connections and were sometimes a pain to resolder. The other thing is that some of their early to mid '80's sets used an oddball horizontal output transistor. The collector terminal is the metal case on most HOT's. The ones used in these Sanyo/Sears sets had the base or emitter terminal (can't remember) as the case. There was no NTE cross reference to that part and the original was very expensive several years ago.

If I were to buy a new CRT set today, I'd probably get a Sanyo (that is, if they still make a CRT set).

i saw the last sanyo crt at walmart a couple of months ago. 32" set with a really
nice picture.i always liked the sanyo too.never a bad or even weak crt.my friend has the same 32 in her house and it displays a terrific picture-as good as any high end crt.grab that sanyo!!!!

my friend adam has a 32" sanyo he bought about 10 years ago maybe, used heavily, still looks great. my dads main set till last summer was a sanyo 19" he and i bought at k-mart in '92, he recently got an lcd HD set and moved the sanyo to the bedroom, still works perfect. id recommend one to anyone, never had any compliants.

Those 80s Sanyos were pretty good. I think the CTC-121 may have a better picture though, as long as the tube is good. The reliability and quality is probably better on the Sanyo. Only gotcha on the Sanyo is that they used tiny ceramic modules which were prone to bad connections. Especially the vertical output module and the CRT drive resistor networks.

Charles