Quote:
Originally Posted by radiotvnut
I'm pretty sure that this is one of the first System 3's from '78 or maybe early '79. I have had several Zenith's with this cabinet style; but, none had that stand. They just had wheels that enabled the TV to be rolled around like any other console.
This was a very popular cabinet style for Zenith. It was used from the mid '70's through the mid '80's. There were chromacolor II's, 1st generation sys 3's, 2nd gen sys 3's, and 3rd gen sys 3's all housed in that same style cabinet. Some versions were remote and the later versions had a cable ready tuner.
If you find one; I hope it uses the older chromacolor II chassis. The system 3's are cheaper made and the inline CRT's they use are often weak by now. The chromacolor II's are built on a steel chassis with plug in modules and the delta gun CRT's are almost always good. IMHO, the CCII's are also easier to repair.
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Hmmm.
Judging from the solid look of the cabinets of the System 3 Zeniths of the eighties such as this one, I would never have guessed they were built more cheaply than the Chromacolor IIs--but that's progress, I guess. Nothing is built as solidly or as well today as it once was. I have a friend whose parents owned a System 3 Zenith color console; it lasted them 15 years before the power supply (I think) gave up the ghost some time in the '90s. They replaced it with an RCA/Thomson "Guide Plus" 25" set that lasted all of two years (!), then the CRT went bad and the set was junked. They got another RCA Guide Plus 25-incher after that; the second set lasted and is still working very well, last I heard.
I was very surprised to read that the Zenith System 3 sets were actually built to less exacting standards than were the CCIIs. Zenith had been my all-time favorite brand of home-entertainment equipment--TVs, stereos, audio--at the time, and all my old sets gave me excellent service (I still have several tube-type Zenith radios from the '60s that work very well for their age) until GoldStar took over and moved the company from Chicago to Korea in the late 1980s. That must have been when the quality standards were lowered for the System 3 line of televisions.
I understand the Zenith "Sentry 2" color TVs were a step down from the System 3s, but my own nearly 14-year-old Sentry 2 still works almost as well as it did when it was new. Even has the original in-line CRT. The only problem I can ever remember having with that set was trouble receiving one cable channel in the mid-'90s. The cable tech told me he thought it was a problem with my set's tuner. I moved about two years later, brought the set with me, and tried it on the cable connection in the bedroom of my then-new apartment; the TV worked perfectly well (and still does to this day) on all cable channels. The only thing I can figure is that there must have been a problem with an outside connection at my former home.
As I said, my Sentry 2 has been working just great, no chassis trouble at all. I intend to use it to replace my 9-year-old RCA CTC185 XL-100 when that set finally dies, although as good a picture as it makes now I'm not expecting any trouble from it.