Last Chance for New Console TV?
 

Came across this CL ad near Atlanta - seems the guy has four Zenith console TV's still in the box in his warehouse:

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/ele/976721410.html

I don't know how good these late-model Zeniths were, but thought this may interest somebody.

Happy new year,

Ryan

They look like they were made during the '90's. AKA, the bad CRT years.

One box says 9804 on it, maybe a date code?

Just helped pitch one of these for a family member of my wife's. Looked exactly like the set in the picture in the second row. Got hit by lightning this past summer. Opened it up and the board in the power supply section and the tuner section were burnt to a crisp. The set was made in May 2000. Had a decent but not great picture from what I remember the last time I saw it working.

Not much in there; the 'chassis' is a PC board about 10" square, with 2 small speakers on either side of the tube, and a lot of empty space. The whole thing couldn't have weighed more than 75 pounds or so.

-Jim

A reminder of the empty shell that Zenith has become. :thumbsdn:

I was recently given a '00 or '01 (can't remember) 25" Zenith console that was hit by lightning. Fortunately, all it did was blow the solder in fuse. This TV actually had a Philips tube and produced a decent picture for a late model Zenith. The chassis was just a cheap made cookie cutter PC board. I wound up letting a friend have it. That might not have been a good idea, as I know it will be right back over here when it goes up in smoke!

Back when the Zenith dealer was in business, I was given loads and loads and loads of those horrid '90's sets with the bad CRT's. Sometimes, I was lucky enough to find a tube from an older set or a more recent tube from a set with a burnt up chassis. I don't miss those sets one bit and am very happy that most of them are now in the dump!

I have one of those! Would not buy another thats for sure! Bad CRTs indeed!

When those were new, my grandparents and my parents were both in the market for a new set...and both were Zenith fanatics back in the heyday. My grandparents bought a 26" JVC and my mom bought a 35" Sony which we still use. The consumer reports on the Zeniths were good, but as I recall, the salesman in PC Richard was convinced that Zenith was one of the worst on the market. This was in '96 or '97 the latest...

000

pure junk including the fake cabinet we have tossed a lot of those in the landfill crt,s toasted pure crap. steve

They made consoles as late as 2001?

Yep, Zenith and RCA both had consoles that late but that might have been the last year. I had a 36" RCA upright console from '01. IIRC, it used the CTC197 chassis. I never fixed it and tossed it because I was tired of climbing over it. There were some RCA consoles that used the CTC203 as well.

The uprights are the type that are basically TV's built into a stand with shelves for a VCR and stuff right? I remember seeing new consoles at an appliance store as late as 2000. It seemed so retro to see new consoles. They looked like something out of the 80's:D

Yes, those are the ones with a shelf and glass door below the screen. It's interesting that many of the consoles from the '40's and '50's. were upright without the shelf. The knobs were usually below the screen and the speaker was below the knobs.

Heh, here's a late model Zenith upright console:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Zenith-A27A76R-2...3%3A1|294%3A50

Yep, seen a few of those. In fact, there's one on my trash pile right now. The flyback shorted and took the HOT and voltage regulator with it. The CRT was questionable as well. I decided to lay it to rest.

P.S. -- If anyone reading this wants a later model upright console, seek out an RCA with the CTC169 chassis. I still see these from time to time and the CRT's are almost always strong and the chassis is usually easy to fix.

You mean something like this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/RCA-35-Color-TV-...3286.m20.l1116
:D

Yep! They made similar models in 27" and 32" sizes. This is a better set than Zenith ever thought about being from that time period. IMHO, the CTC169 was one of the better RCA Thomson era chassis.