Best and Worst Televisions, ever!

[Big Dave]

I can only respond with the sets I have worked on or have in my collection.

BEST TUBE COLOR:

Zenith (round and rectangular). These have worked well after, and even before servicing. The pictures, to me, are slightly dimmer than their RCA counterparts. I want more.

RCA (round). Good performers, despite the shitty PC boards. I feel the pics on RCA roundies blow away the crap on the market today.

BEST SOLID STATE OR HYBRID COLOR:

Sylvania D series (hybrid).

RCA XL 100 (first generation)

Zenith Chromacolor (first generation)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

RCA tube rectangular color. If it weren't for the fact that the CRT's died early, these would be in the best catagory.

Zenith hybrid and SS. If it weren't for the safety caps going bad and the contacts on the modules being a bitch to keep clean, they would be in the other catagory.

WORST TUBE COLOR:

Anything made by GE. The only thing GE is good for is light bulbs.

RCA series string portables. I never could get them working like their transformer counterparts.

WORST SOLID STATE OR HYBRID COLOR:

All the new stuff.

GE, pre RCA rape and pillage.

Most of the Japanese makes, until now.

BEST TUBE BW:

Andrea. I feel the restoration of my CVL-16 turned out nice. It is a very watchable set.

Any Zenith from the porthole days to the end of the 1960's.

RCA

Admiral made a lot of nice sets (just scored one)

Philco (excluding the Predicta and before Ford bought them)

WORST TUBE BW:

GE, although I wouldn't mind having one for my collection.

I have a Sylvania (SAMS set 500) that I'm not impressed with.

WORST BW SOLID STATE:

I have none to list since I haven't had many for too long.


There are others I have but didn't list, since they are not restored and I have no feelings either way yet.