CRT sets on clearance at Wal*Mart
 

I happened by the local Wal*Mart store and noticed that most of the remaining "last-gasp" CRT ATSC TVs are being closed out. Included were the 14" RCA (a fairly cute square-cornered CRT set), the 13" Magnavox with DVD player, both versions of the 20" RCA (with and without built-in DVD) and at least one of the 27" sets, but I forget which. The 20" Emerson was still at regular price. [Note that all of these have ATSC digital tuners, but are standard-definition (480i) only, of course]

Anyway, your local Wal*Mart may vary, but these models are almost certainly going to be among the last CRT-based TV sets being offered in the USA market. May be worth picking one up just for the history value.

Saw the RCA 20" TruFlat for under 100$ at local WallyWorld.
Damn near tossed one in the shopping basket at that price.

If you bought one of these and kept it in it's box for 50 years, I can promise you that you'd have one of the few surviving working examples.

In my area, I think walmart is about the only place that still has CRT sets. I know this whole digital flat screen deal has helped used CRT TV sales. Many people can't afford several hundred $ for a flat panel set; and, new CRT sets are getting hard to find. They now don't think a thing about dropping $100 on a good used 27" CRT set. Of course, that will all change in a couple of years when they start selling LCD sets for $59.99.

Couldn't pay me to take one of those DVD/TV combos. They all break down quickly from what I've seen. Not to mention the picture usually sucks...

Let the CRT die with some dignity! :D

I hate to think this is the end of an era. But there is a possibility that it isn't. The LP record and the turntable were outdated in the mid-80s, and quicky disappeared. Now, every time I go to Fry's, they have another new turntable added to their inventory. Cheapies from China, but hey: They're once again being made & sold after a 25-year hiatus. Maybe the same with CRTs and VCRs. There will always be a market for VHS machines, since families 30 years from now will unearth Grandpa's home videos and want to play them.

I do believe that the ATSC CRT sets will be MAJOR collectibles in the future, since they have been (will only have been) made in very low production and only for a couple years. Think how rare the Zenith black & white, cable-ready, digital remote sets from the mid-80s are!

True. And I wouldn't rule out grabbing one myself, and leaving the box sealed. For practical business purposes, it wouldn't make sense, since your $100 could be invested elsewhere and make a lot more over 50 years than the value would rise on the TV. But the fact is that having the original box & packing for any vintage TV, triples or even quadruples the value.

Charles

Sopmething like a turntable can be made in low quantities if desired, but color CRTs require too much specialized tooling at each stage. I think very unlikely to come back except if it can be supported by at least one large glass factory and CRT manufacturing plant. (Of course, if the military wanted one at any price...)

Making turntables in 2009 makes sense in that vinyl records are still being issued, especially 12" dance singles for DJ use, and, of course, many people are stuck with a valuable record collection and an old broken turntable.

The same isn't probably going to happen with other formats like cassette tapes, VHS tapes, CRT TVs and, i think, CDs, these have little if any sentimental or collectable value for most people, and will just become obsolete and forgotten in the next few years, in most cases, manufacturing plants are being converted to other more modern productions, the machinery needed for their manufacture has already been scrapped out or will be shortly and there's no coming back from this.

Think about reel to reel tapes, 8-track tapes and super8 films, they're still collectable for sure, but if you want to listen to your collection of 8-track tapes or watch your old super8 movies, you're stuck with using old surviving players and projectors, and they disappeared from the stores in the early-mid 80s or even earlier in the case of domestic low speed reel to reel machines

000

We got one of those unreliable CRT/DVD combos a couple of years ago -- a Toshiba -- and thus far it's been holding up well. The set downstairs is a 12-year-old 27" RCA that's still doing fine. My wife and I don't watch much television and are in no real hurry for flat screen, home theater, HDTV etc.

It never really crossed my mind at the time we got it that we were getting one of the last ones that would ever be made.

Shame to see a quality product go the wayside.... Still like the picture better on a CRT....

CRTs can certainly display an excellent picture. The few HD-capable ones I've seen look exceptionally good.

Shame to see that SACD is dying... Guess people just don't see the point in upgrading their hardware and paying slightly more for the music. :scratch2:

I have several Crt tvs. I dont plan to go to a flat panel anytime soon. I have one 36" and 3 13" sets plus 2 tv vcr combos and a tv dvd combo.
John

Thinking about it, one thing that might keep CDs alive in the future is that you don't need fancy expensive equipment to press your own CDs, you just need a PC with a CD-R drive, the same is true for cassette tapes though.

Although virtually all CRT sets made in the last few years are pure junk, it's sad to see 80 years of TV engineering going in the toilet, there will be no more flybacks, no more yokes, i think i'll miss that high pitched whine you hear whenever you walk near a house where a CRT TV is on.

Has anyone noticed that when you go to an electronics store, they purposely have a bad connection on the CRT sets, and they mis-adjust the colour so they look worse than the flat screens in comparrison?

I was in future shop a while ago, and I noticed all the TVs had a gross fuzzy snowy picture, with the colour adjusted waaay too high, and the tint was way off.
They do this on purpose so people would see them, think CRTs are crap, and fork out the fortune for a plasma that will last about 5 years.

Nothing new here, when I used to work for RCA Labs in the early to mid 80's, I'd hear and see the same story. That shops would misadjust RCA TVs so as to make some higher profit margin TVs they had look better in comparison. They'd get annoyed when we corrected the RCAs... :D

My Dad really wanted a new Zenith TV back around 1980. The local dealer that sold them also carried GE...the owner told him the GE was the better set so that is what he bought. I always suspected profit margin.

I never adjust any of the tv's. Just take them out of the box and put them on the wall. Our cuxtomers adjust them sometimes if they can reach them. So in our store if it looks good out of the box it looks good, and if it looks crappy from the factory well that is how it will look on our display. I do not have time to adjust every set.

Bill R

Just was in Walmart today. The only CRT sets in that place are the ones they hang from the ceiling to play their shopping network feed. They were actually in the process of remodeling the entire store, and it looks kind of barren. They are offering maybe twenty flat panel sets, the cheapest starting at about $250. This morning they had two 42'' sets on clearance for $700, and by this evening, when I had to go back for something or other, they were sold. Quite an interesting situation, that my only tv options are to pay about $500 for a decent sized new flat panel, or just go down the street to Goodwill where all tvs are $10...

000

Amen to that! Of course, the FP's will probably be selling at giveaway prices in a few years; but, I'm going to take advantage of it while I can. Two years ago, I had trouble getting rid of 27" CRT sets. You should have heard some of the bitching and moaning when I'd quote someone $75 or $100 for a 27" quality used TV. "WHAT, I CAN GO TO THE DOLLAR STORE AND GET A NEW ONE FOR $99." I felt like telling them to go right on down there and buy that piece of shit and don't come crying to me when it blows up in a week. Well, I actually told a few that if they could get a new TV for $99; then, that's what they needed to do. I didn't use any profanity on them.

Now, people are finding out that they can't run to whatever discount house and buy a $99 new TV anymore and not everyone can afford a flat panel TV. Those situations are making it easier to sell used TV's again. Also, my friend that runs a repair shop is getting a lot more repair estimates approved on CRT sets. I'm also noticing that the local SA is moving a lot of TV's. Even the old knob tuner sets are selling. I think they get between $25 and $35 for knob tuned sets.

Sometime this week, I'm supposed to be picking up an '85 Zenith console that the guy paid around $800 for and it's been trouble free until it recently died. He's been using it to sit his flatscreen on. The flatscreen is less than a year old and has already given him trouble. It was fixed under warranty; but, he still had to pay the labor charges. It's really sad that the old TV lasted 23-24 years without a problem and the so called "improved" TV lasted less than a year before it gave trouble.

I was talking with my wife today about the 19" Symphonic or Durabrand (or whatever) set she had when I met her, asking if she wanted to put it in her daughter's bedroom and get it out of my shed. She said that she bought it on sale for $70 new in 2004 at Wal Mart - I still find it incredible, a new TV for $70. Incidentally, I never have bought a new TV; never paid more than $25 for a used one.

A $70 dollar tv is just crazy. Don't forget how cheap VCRs have also become-about $40 new for those awful feather-lite models, where I can still remember my Dad spending $100 dollars on a case of ten VHS tapes to put into his $400 VCR.

If prices on consumer electronics are going to rise, fine. But I would like to see folks take more interest in those possessions they paid so dearly for. There are younger people in my family that are perfectly fine with tossing out that dead year-old set; while my Grandfather won't toss out his B&W Zenith $ervice Saver because he dropped an equivalent amount of cash on that forty years ago.

000

I've seen the prices of CRT sets almost collapse here in recent years. They've held up a bit in the wholesale market, where people buy them for export to poorer countries, but NO ONE else that I know of buys CRTs here any more, or will even take them for free!

Less than two years ago, I paid about a hundred bucks for a TOTL Bang & Olufsen, figuring I'd be happy with it for several years until the flat-screen ones got cheap enough. [I'll pay reasonably for audio, but somehow don't want to pay that much for video.]

Well, recently I got a pair of Yamaha NS-1000Ms, and the magnets on those unshielded things were so strong that I couldn't get them within four feet of the television.

So, somewhat reluctantly, I decided to sell the B&O and get a Plasma screen. I then found out that the wholesale bird-doggers wouldn't even take the CRT FOR FREE. [This model cost several thousand dollars, just over ten years ago!] They'll still take some models, for rock-bottom prices of a few bucks apiece, but almost no one wants the B&Os. Extremely solid build (solid cast-aluminum frame, weighs over 100 lbs in total, great color, etc... the thing even automatically turns itself to face the direction of the remote control, when you turn it on with the remote!) ... and no one wants them. Even the decorator shops that sell retro-cool stuff weren't very interested.

Very sad, in a way.
Tempus fugit.
To everything, there is a season.
All things must pass.
Let go, grasshopper...
but it still feels a bit sad...

....

That's about it! The same people who buy them, are the ones who also need a BMW and need to have their kids in the most expensive private school, even if the kids are special-ed. Same people as those who need a 6,000 sq. ft. house in the best zipcode in order to make their Christmas card recipients think they've "made it big". Same people, sadly, who now have a 250% loan-to-to-value mortgage in default. On the other hand, most of my successful and wealthy, well-invested friends are watching CRTs and driving used cars, and are living in a rural zipcode so that the local public schools are good enough.

Charles

000

My rant
 

Boy am I getting tired of the attitude around here towards people who like Big Screen, HD, Plasma, 16:9, Blu Ray and all the rest.

Some of us like out Plasmas because they have a great picture and we like to watch movies in a format that's as close to the Theater as possible.

HD 16:9 blows NTSC clean out of the water, no contest, those sets at Wal Mart look like crap by comparison because they are crap.
C'mon folks the tech was 70 years old, time for something new.

I don't have a 6000 sq ft house or a BMW or any nice car, just a 20 year old Toyota truck and a Honda Civic.

BTW Panasonic's new Plasmas have a screen that's rated to last 100,000 hours, or 42 years under average use, I expect if they put that much effort into the panels they probably put some effort into the electronics as well.

My Sony Projector is already 5 years old without a single problem, not even a bulb yet.

I was just at my local Target store a few weeks ago and saw their last remaining tube models. They were adjusted properly and were getting just as good of a video signal as the flat screens. One thing I noticed with the tube TV's is their ability to produce better color contrast than the flat panels if you get what I mean.

For example, I would look on the flat panel sets and see a woman wearing a red dress. I then immediately looked at the tube sets and I could see, of course, a woman with a red dress but...slightly different shades of red stripes just barely visible on the dress. The flat panel TV's couldn't produce those stripes on the dress and just showed the dress as a wash of red!!!!

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "Flat Panel" is it the $299 LCD SD set or the $5000 Kuros Plasma?

Just want to know if we're comparing Apples to Apples or?

The flat panel TV's were fairly large probably in the 40 to 50 inch range. I believe both LCD and Plasma. Flat panel display TV's no doubt put out a clearer picture and save space but I just feel they lack the quality that was put into so many old tube sets.

It seems to me that a lot of us tv collectors have forgotten just how much maintenance a "vintage" tv, vcr, am/fm stereo receiver, table top radio, etc really required even when new. Up until the mid 90's there were still thousands of tv/appliance repair shops keeping this gear operational. Just remember how many "authorized" Zenith, RCA and Admiral repair shops there were in existance.
Then the bpc and spc sets arrived from en masse from Asia and things really changed. Realiable sets became the norm, excellent pricing, and decent pictures. We have all ran across mid 80's sets from all of the import manufactures that are still working perfectly - tens of thousands of those sets still work just fine - just look at the "dumpster" finds posted here. I am sure we all have bpc sets lying around that have thousands of hours on them without ever needing anything more than a shot of Windex to clean the cabinet and crt face. VERY SELDOM does one come across a "vintage" RCA, ZENITH, ADMIRAL, etc that has not seen a servicemans screwdriver.

But I still like my old tv's. Especially the RCA and Zenith consoles. True, they come no where near the picture quality of a $250 wallyworld lcd set, and they are "mostly" reliable, but damn the look really nice!!

Still searching for an original front loader Selectavision VCR from the early 80's to go with my RCA consoles of that era. Knowledge tells me that any "new" vcr is infinately better, but i really want an old Selectavision!!!

Next time I catch one of those no name 19/20 inch lcd baby tv's on sale, I think I'll snag one and hang it in the kitchen. Maybe that will stop the GF and daughter from eating in the LR.

Thank you, sorry if I've been a little cranky today, I just get a little weary of the "New stuff is crap" threads that pop up every few weeks.

I grew up with tubes sets and they were anything but reliable or even well built, granted they were cheap 19" B&W portables but as a whole they used the same tubes, caps and controls as the more expensive sets.

As a whole the average TV built today is light years more reliable than most tube sets, they are also much less repairable and I think that is what bugs people.

As for how a set looks in the store, you can't put much stock in it, many of them are badly misadjusted or being fed a poor signal, or people have fussed with them.

I know that a lot of cheap modern LCD & Plasma sets don't look as good as a decent CRT set but that doesn't mean that everything Digital or 16:9 sucks, and I speak from several years of hands on experience with them and I wouldn't go back to CRT for anything unless they can build one 50", 16:9 and less than 100 pounds. :yes:

I have grown up with black and white admeril T.V.,to a 22 inch all tube curtus mathus, to a 22 inch solid state C/M .then a 27 inch RCA to a 32 inch RCA ,then a 52 inch Hitachi rear projection and now a 65 inch Mitsubishi DLP. and I hate tube T.V.s they take for ever to warm up,and when you turn off the lousy picture it just keeps getting smaller and an hour later there is still a little glowing dot in the middle of the picture tube.I really liked the move to solid state,tube sets broke down alot. but now the old CRT is just to heavy,could you pick up a 65 or 72 inch CRT?
glad to seeum go.

The next gen nano static film tv's will be even better,the thin film is streached out on a large wall and the transtuner attached useing 3 conductors.
It is possable to leave it on for 30 years with no troubble and uses only 1/2 a watt!

Yes, the fact that they are much less repairable is one of the major things that bugs me. My old tube stuff may or may not be reliable. I suppose time will answer that question; but, at least I stand a good chance of being able to repair it (and maybe learn something in the process) when something does fail.

Also, I don't ever mean to slam anyone who owns a Plasma, LCD, DLP, or whatever latest technology TV set. If that's what you like, go for it! The main ones I get ticked at are the people that are just trying to keep up with the guy next door. I'm not saying there is anyone here like that; but, I know plenty of people in this town that are. They think that living in an expensive house, driving an expensive car, owning all the latest expensive new electronic gadgets, etc. makes them somebody. As for some of the people I know, all it makes them is deeper in debt.

Just today, I picked up a 24 year old Zenith console from an old man out in the country. The old Zenith was being used for a stand to sit his new Magnavox LCD TV on. I gave him an empty cabinet in exchange for the old Zenith TV. And, he wasn't living in a large house or driving a fancy car. He really didn't strike me as the type to care about HD. I think he wanted a picture bigger than his old 25" set and the LCD set was what he decided would meet his needs.

000

I have bought one new TV set...a 12" bw Midland from Western Auto back around '85. With tax I paid over $70. Not a bad deal at the time.

Color TV selling for under $100 was a major milestone, though few thought much about it, I guess. It was a nail in the coffin of every independent TV shop in the country.

I have nothing against someone buying a flatscreen; I just have no interest in owning one myself. Luckily my wife doesn't either. A couple times I have offered to replace our living room set (an inherited 19" Sylvania that is close to 20 years old) with a 27". She says that would be too big! Fine with me. I'll keep that old NAP set as long as she'll let me.

My wife isn't pushing for a new TV, but I plan on getting her one for Christmas. She has the DVD and Playstation that needs the input jacks. I have everything hooked up "McGyverish" (is that a word?) through the VCR and a cheapo RF modulator to our 4-year-old Durabrand, whose A/V jacks are inaccessible without a remote. She still has to ask me how to switch from one thing to another, so I guess I should make life a little easier for her. I figure the red Chinese TV will probably catch fire or something soon - at least it was free, a gift from a family friend when I finished rebuilding the house. The nice thing is she doesn't mind if I put a new flat screen on top of an old color console for my own use. :)

I work at Radio Shack and I usually do the TVs. The only adjusting done is to fight the flouro lights which make the sets look awful. But there is only so good they willl look as they are fed from a Dish TV box that produces a signal so full of compression artifacts that I wonder why people buy it at all. If I can see the compression artifacts badly on a 32" Envision LCD, I wonder how they would look on my buddy's new 62" Samsung LED set? One problem with the flat sets, where does everything go? You can't even stick an antenna on top, never mind set a cable box, VCR, DVD, whatever. That and they have no soul. I lucked out though, when my buddy bought that Samsung, he sold me his HD Tube projector set. Throughout my youth, a projection set said "I've made it". I love the warmth of a tube picture, and I've got HD. I win. At least in my own mind, but what else matters?

I sometimes wonder if those of us who prefer a 4:3 CRT are that way because it is what we are used to and therefore "right" if that makes any sense. I guess I've spent most of my life in front of a CRT of some description from the 14" Toshiba my parents bought to go with my 1st computer as a child through the many various sets I have owned and still own to this day. Maybe I just can't get used to anything else.

I bought an LCD computer monitor when one came my way cheap. I used it for a couple of days, but I found it gave me a headache so I went back to my CRT. I now only use the LCD as a test monitor when working on other PCs as it is more convenient to move around.

I had a 50" HD LCD rear projection set for a while. I got rid of it because I found the lack of constrast on dark scenes, the limited viewing angle and the scaling artifacts (I don't entirely blame the TV for this, there's only so much that can be done when an SD signal is scaled up so much) when viewing anything other than a 1080i source distracting.

I had a 32" 16:9 flat screen CRT set for a while. The regulation was not good enough to keep the edges of a 4:3 image straight, so it's gone now.

Now I'm back to a 32" 4:3 curved screen CRT and I see no reason to change unless I find a better CRT. I have no problem watching letterboxed movies on a 4:3 set, but 4:3 content pillarboxed on a 16:9 set drives me nuts for some unknown reason.

Maybe I'm strange though, I've always preferred to watch movies at home as (among other reasons) the projected image in the cinema doesn't look right to me either.

I have no problem with those who prefer LCD/Plasma/etc, as long I don't have to pay for it or spend hours watching it.