With Circuit City closing all their stores, Zenith brand may be dead as well...
 

That's right everybody, with Circuit City closing all their stores, I predict the Zenith brand will be dead as well. :tears: Circuit City is the last retailer I know of to stock Zenith products. Back in the 80s and 90s, Circuit City sold more Zenith products than any other retailers. Best Buy does not accept the Zenith brand, but only LG.

The last Zenith brand product is a DVD recorder/VCR combo. Not sure if I should get one.

Is it something other than BPC from China? Or (should I even dare think it) made in USA? :D

In my opinion, Zenith has been dead a long time.

If I were you, I'd save my money and seek out a REAL Zenith product from yesteryear. I think GoldSludge gained complete control of Zenith in '98 or '99 and they've had their hooks in Zenith since the mid-late '80's. And, that's when Zenith started taking a real nosedive. I also read somewhere that GS was making radios for Zenith as far back as the '70's.

Probably the reason BB and others will not accept the Zenith brand is because of the bad reputation Zenith had during the '90's bad CRT era.

Year before last my wife wanted a big screen plasma and we got a 50" Zenith from Circuit City for $999. (day after Thanksgiving and spur of the moment purchase) We looked up its' customer satisfaction record and it was terrible. We returned it 2 days later. They keep sending us offers for warranty extension and just received another 3 days ago!

Think of what the closing will mean to Onkyo sales here in the US as well. CC was undoubtedly the biggest retailer of Onk gear in the States for the past twenty years.

I have two 1980-vintage Zenith radios that were actually manufactured by Zenith subsidiaries in Korea and Taiwan, and in 1982 I had a Zenith four-mode stereo system which was also made in Korea to the specifications of Zenith. I also had two Zenith 13" color TVs and a 12" solid-state portable that were made by Zenith Electronics Corp. of Missouri and by a Zenith subsidiary in Mexico, respectively. My Zenith Sentry 2 19" color TV, built in 1995 (smack dab in the middle of the time frame during which Zenith color sets were turning up in alarming numbers with bad CRTs) was also made by the Zenith Electronics Corp. of Glenview, Illinois, as attested to by a label on the back cover.

Zenith's last table radio was a small AM/FM set, marketed in 1982. I don't know if this set was built to Zenith's specs by a Korean or Taiwanese company, but it probably wasn't manufactured by Zenith itself as the company was pretty much out of the radio business by that time--the radios bearing its name being manufactured offshore. The radio, a table set in a wood (faux wood by then, no doubt) cabinet, was not much to speak of, despite the fact that it had slide controls for volume, bass and treble and a tuning meter. There was also a little gizmo on the back of the radio that Zenith called a "bass booster", although I think this may have been little more than an air chamber which had little or no real effect on the sound. I don't know how well this radio worked, how it sounded or even how many of them were sold, but I do know they show up on eBay every once in a great while....and I mean great while, as in every few months if you're lucky. I guess it either wasn't that great a radio when it was new, or else Zenith didn't sell very many, putting it in the "sleeper" category along with their MJ1035 11-tube AM/stereo FM table radio.

I've seen a few of those early to mid '70's 12" Zenith hybrid B&W's that were made in Taiwan. And, I've had a couple Zenith "all-in-one" stereo systems from the late '70's to early '80's that were Korean built. They were still a decent all-in-one system when compared to the Soundesign, Yorx, Electrophonic, etc. systems that were available at the same time. I've got a little wooden AM/FM Zenith solid state AC table radio from around '68 that I inherited from my uncle when he passed away. IIRC, it was made in the USA. It's a decent performer; but, is built on a PC chassis and is certainly not as well built as their tube models from a few years earlier. My '78 19" Chromacolor II is Mexican; but, my '76 and '77 models are USA built.

As far as my interest in Zenith, it pretty much ends when they discontinued the Chromacolor II's. I might show some interest in the early System 3's depending on the exact model and provided they are clean and the CRT is good. And, I'm sure most will agree that the CCII chassis was easier to troubleshoot than the System 3 chassis. I really don't think Zenith intended for the System 3 chassis to be repaired at the component level. They expected the entire board to be changed. That's all fine and good; but, those System 3 boards were quite expensive.

OK, I'm done for now.

The latest piece of Zenith equipment I own is a 1981 integrated stereo (IS 4031), an AM/FM cassette with a BSR changer. Probably the last gasp of the big wide combo units. It states on the back "Mfd. in Korea to the standards and specifications of the Zenith Radio Corp., Chicago, USA." Can't see anything on the inside with a mention of Zenith - did see a resistor lying loose in the back corner though! I'd imagine that, "specifications of Zenith aside," it was a badge-engineered stereo - I've seen Soundesign units from that era that have similar control setups and faceplates.

We had a Zenith System 3 19" color set from the late 80's through around '94 - no remote, had ten number buttons across the top with a green digital tuning indicator - can't remember for sure if it was cable ready (my gut tells me no.) Mom discarded it after the power switch, which was a pushbutton mechanical switch, blew up and shot fire at her one evening :nono:

I agree.

I also had a Zenith stereo like yours in the early '80s. It served me well and worked well for about 17 years; I'd still have it today, but I moved to a very small apartment nine years ago and was forced to downsize, so I left the Zenith at my former home and bought an Aiwa bookshelf system. (Just as well. It was time to upgrade to a CD system by then anyway.)

As to those IS- series Zenith integrated systems such as yours and mine, you may be right--they could well have been re-badged systems actually manufactured by Soundesign, et al., with the manufacturer using the Zenith name under license.

I don't know about yours, but the speakers on my Zenith IS-4041 had a nameplate at the lower right corner of the grille cloth that stated "Allegro 100 by Zenith." (Zenith made several integrated systems in the late '70s-early '80s, all of which had this nameplate on the speakers; the next model up from mine had speakers with the nameplate reading "Allegro 300 by Zenith." Perhaps the "Allegro 300" speakers were capable of handling more power than the 100 series? :scratch2:) The rest of my system had, as I mentioned in my post, been made in Korea. The only ties to Zenith I could see were the "Zenith" nameplate on the front of the unit (they had done away with their trademark "crest" emblem by about the mid-'80s) and the notice on the back of the system stating that it had been manufactured in Korea to the specifications and standards of the Zenith Radio Corporation of Chicago.

IIRC, the word "Zenith", with the company's trademark lightning bolt forming the letter Z, was also near that notice. My Zenith Sentry 2 19" color set also has the same signage on the control panel, above the power switch and the IR remote sensor.

I've seen advertisements in my Sunday paper from time to time (I haven't seen them lately) for bookshelf stereo systems bearing the Zenith brand. I'm almost certain this is a rebadged offshore make, such as Soundesign, again with that firm using the Zenith name under license from whatever is left (if there is anything left, which I seriously doubt) of the original Zenith Radio Corporation. I don't know for certain. Perhaps by now, with the original Zenith being history, their name and logos might well be in the public domain. I notice LG (Lucky Goldstar) no longer uses the lightning-bolt Z logo on its televisions, so I think LG has completely severed whatever ties they may have had with the former Zenith Corporation, however shaky they may have been (and probably were) by the time the latter left Chicago.


BTW: Wow! That must have been some huge short in your family's 19" Zenith System 3 TV if the pushbutton power switch "blew up" and shot sparks. (I hope your mother was and is OK, that she wasn't shocked or injured.) Those switches don't normally handle very much current (the power switch probably only energizes a relay and the degaussing coil, as is common in most TVs made in the last 15 years or so), which is why I suspect some large component must have shorted the power supply or the HV supply directly to ground. Whatever it was, as I said, it must have been a huge short drawing a tremendous amount of current (I'm surprised the fuse didn't blow) if the power switch was destroyed and there was a large amount of sparking.

That System 3 TV you describe sounds to me (from your description) like a large-screen set Zenith marketed in the '70s or early '80s, in a large box-shaped cabinet, similar to the design of RCA's ColorTrak 2000 sets of the same era. The latter also had the channel selector buttons in a row across the top of the TV (and the green LCD channel indicator), above the CRT. If it looks like I think it does (with a door the full width of the cabinet over the control panel, Space Phone and Color Sentry), I used to see advertisements for this model of System 3 TV in National Geographic magazines of the early 1980s that stated, "It's time you knew the difference between a television and the Zenith System 3." At the time, Zenith was heavily advertising its System 3 line of televisions, which were the successor to the Chromacolor II sets of the 1970s.

Late '80s to 1994 sounds to me like an awfully short life span for your family's Zenith TV. I have a Sentry 2 that's nearly 14 years old and still works almost as well as when it was new (it still has its original CRT as well).

I'm just curious--what finally killed your family's TV? As I said, with all the sparking from the AC switch, some large component must have failed and knocked a short directly across the power supply, the HV supply, or the AC line itself. :scratch2:

I'm not surprised to have heard yesterday that Circuit City is done for. I said & wrote that about 2 years ago. It confirmed the time line when they filed BK last year, it was only a smokescreen that they "were going to restructure". Nobody in the investment community has thought any of these end-user type TV-Video-Stereo superstores could make it in the face of the success of Fry's, Costco and Walmart. The department stores saw the writing on the wall years (decades) ago, and stopped selling consumer electronics. The only reason (in my opinion) that Best Buy hasn't YET failed, is that they're a factory-authorized Apple reseller. You can bookmark this post and refer back to it later: Best Buy will file BK some time before the end of this year, and will not survive the next Christmas season. It will pretend it's OK for now, but it's not possible for them to keep afloat with their present business plan, assets and debt.

For the record, here's the rest of my "2009 business doom list"

Macy's

Chrysler (will be absorbed by another company, perhaps Mitsubishi)

Bloomingdale's (probably will survive, but will close >50% of stores

Marathon Oil Co. and Valero Oil Co. These will falter but not file BK, and will be bought out by other oil companies at a loss to shareholders.

Now are you sitting down? My grand finale' is AMGEN. One of the largest employers in Southern California. They're so badly overextended that no matter how well they do, their real estate bungles in Ventura County, CA will cause them unrest, and at best, they'll have to downsize dramatically and may cede to Lily or Pfizer. Amgen bought 100s or even 1000s of acres of land in prime areas, developed it, and now occupies most of it. As they downsize, they can't sell or lease out any of this vacant space. Investors don't like vacant buildings with a $100s of millions annually in tax and exposure liability. And with government spending waning, there aren't so many opportunities for research firms like Amgen to get funding for new products. Patents are nearing expiration, and the pink slips are flying out like angry bees from a disturbed hive.


And here's one that looks bad right now, but will shine and survive the whole economic disaster, despite the Steve Jobs health concerns: APPLE. eBay will also shine and THRIVE.

Charles

*I'm not offering ANY advice on investing or selling any interest in these companies! Just my personal opinions.....

Commander Eugene F. McDonald, Jr., is spinning in his grave...Or maybe not. He might be happy to see the travesty that his beloved "Zenith" has become, to die...

Mine didn't have the speakers when I bought it second-hand, but I know it came with Allegro speakers from either a newspaper ad or a photofact I once saw.

Thankfully, no one was hurt, and from what I remember we put the set out on the following garbage day. I was around 18-19 when it happened and immersed in fixing up cars. I can tell you this - mom used to have TVs repaired, we had a CTC-40 for almost 20 years with little service needed. The set that replaced it was another RCA, purchased in 1987, a 25" color set with a remote - it had 5 or 6 thin silver buttons on the lower right of the cabinet lip that pushed straight down. That set gave us a lot of trouble (it would turn itself on at full volume in the middle of the night, often picking up trucks' CB radios) and was discarded about a year before the Zenith. When the Zenith "blew up," I don't think she felt like spending any more money trying to fix "these new TVs."

It was a 19" tabletop in a woodgrained plastic cabinet, non-remote, purchased originally for my little brother when we discarded the CTC-40 - this would have been between 1987 and 1989. The control panel was only about 1 inch high, right above the CRT, all the buttons were inline with each other. There was 1 through 0, enter, channel up & down and volume up & down - very small rectangular buttons (I think the number buttons were square.) The power button was the furthest to the right, rectangular but larger than the rest. There may have been a door at the bottom housing the color/crt controls, but I am not sure.

Yeah, I think we just went through a bad streak. Mom used my 19" B&W '77 Zenith for a couple of years after that, then I gave her my '85 Magnavox 19" color (with digital tuning - not cable ready.) The Maggie developed a problem with the tuner in 2003, and my brother bought her a brand new set. I put the Magnavox on the curb in 2004 when I downsized my storage, and the looters after Katrina busted the CRT in my B&W Zenith :tears:

Hey Jeff, I have that same Zenith 19" set. I think it was the last one to have the controls alongside the screen instead of under. It was Christmas present from my mom back in '94. And the tube is still good!