Quote:
Originally Posted by rcaman
xl00 means extended life 100% solid state. steve
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I understand that. But why is RCA (Thomson) still using XL100 some 20+ years after introducing the first 100-percent SS extended-life sets? My best guess is that they, like Zenith, don't want to see the designation go into the public domain; that or else RCA is still very proud of its original XL100 TV chassis design, and they want the world to know it. (Was RCA the first U.S. television manufacturer to have 100-percent solid-state sets in its product line? If so, the company is justified in hanging on to the XL-100 designation, well over 20 years after introducing the first sets with this chassis design.)
BTW, I believe the "extended life" claim in XL-100. My own RCA CTC185 is still going strong (original CRT with a beautiful picture, as well) after eight years of daily use, with only one repair (actually two repairs for the same problem) in all that time; the RF port to which the antenna/cable connects snapped off the tuner PC board, once IIRC in 2000, the second time [!] a year or so later. (Neither repair, however, was covered by my set's warranty; I had to pay out of my own pocket both times, and it wasn't cheap.
) Even the on-board tuner hasn't been a problem since the ground points were resoldered the last time the set was worked on.
I'm expecting this TV to last years now (well into the all-digital age beginning next year), as the on-board tuner was the main sticking point in the CTC185s. Seems as if RCA/Thomson finally got it right (thank goodness) with the CTC203 and its successors, which have the tuner mounted separately from the main chassis. What gets me, however, is this: Why on earth did it take them so long to correct this problem? I'd have thought they would have known (or at least suspected) something was very wrong when the CTC185, and other chassis using the on-board tuner, were turning up for warranty service left and right with cracked solder joints around the tuner and corrupted EEPROMs. Since RCA/Thomson was footing the bills for each and every one of these warranty repairs, it could not have shown very well in the company's profit/loss statements either.