Quote:
Originally Posted by drh4683
If 1992 was the start of zeniths "bad" years for CRT, when did they become "good" or "better" again? I dont know enough about the 90's zenith sets. Ive worked on very few of them. How long did those tube last before they started to have problems? Its really dissapointing that one of the great names in US electronics let quality slip like that.
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During the late '90's - to around '02, I was given MANY 90's era Zenith's by the local Zenith dealer / repair shop. 95% of these had some sort of CRT defect. It seems like the '92 to '95 models would short and blow up the power supply. These would often be weak at the same time. They did get a little better after this; but, not much. I still saw plenty of '96 models on up that had bad CRT's. I saw several '97 and '98 models that had good emission; but, they would arc and take out one of the video driver transistors. A new transistor might fix the set for a week or two - then BAM! I think '99 is the newest Zenith I've seen with a bad CRT. The age of these sets was anywhere from 2 to 7 years old by the time I got them. I've seen a couple of '99 Zenith's that had the bonded yoke style tube that looks similar to what's in a Thomson RCA set. Those tubes were good (at least the ones I saw). My friend that used to work at the Zenith shop said some of the newer ('99 on) Zenith's had Philips tubes in them. It's a shame that a company that once made "last forever" tubes ended up making tubes that were doing good to last out the warranty. Those were the worst tubes I've seen. If I ever see another one of those Zenith's, it will be too soon!
BTW, that dealer is now out of business. Couldn't compete with walmart and other "discount" stores. I will say that I got a few good '70's Zenith's from them. Looking back, I should have kept them!