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I'm too young to have seen it first hand, but from what I've seen companies like Sony and Panasonic beat companies like RCA and Zenith by producing better products. I'm pretty sure they were significantly more expensive than their American counterprats, but people wanted TVs that worked for years between repairs. No American company bothered to make a VCR, instead they just slapped their names on Japanese VCRs. By the 80's RCA and Zenith were way behind. They didn't make any of the new high tech devices such as VCRs and CD players. The inside of a Zenith TV from 1986 reminds me of a Sony from 1976 with it's many boards, dozens of connectors and a mass of wires connecting everything together. Zenith and RCA came up with lots of great ideas even in the 80's, and their products were good, but not as good.
I think a lot of it may have been because all the best engineers were leaving consumer electronics to make things like computers. America is still a leader in many areas such as computer technology. It's like we got bored with designing and making TVs.
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