Zenith's Decline

[freakaftr8]

I have a few early Japanese sets in my collection. A Sony KV1200u and a KV1220u and a Hitachi CVA450. These are late 60's sets and are built like a tank. I know that instead of connectors things were hardwired to boards. Circuit boards are like what you would see if you popped open a 90's trinitron. Amazing technology even back then. But the american sets were built like a tank too and chassis in those sets were built with quality too.

Quality did slip within Sony too you know. I believe it was somewhere within 1986 to 1989. I have a KV-1926RA 19" Sony from 1989 that has had HOTs blow and bad sloppy solder connections al over the board including FBT. BPC too, the picture quality was still good. Athough it showa signs of convergence issues in the corners.

Then I have a KV-1917 19" Sony from 1984. This set is still going strong, no problems, near perfect convergence and I believe it was built in San Diego, CA. I opened this one up before to clean it out. It's in my machine shop and gets used a bit. Board quality and Soldering in this one is top notch. I seems Sony's had issues all the way up with sets being built in Mexico. Sure the pictury quality was still there but the inital quality suffered.

I have a 2001 Sony KV-36XBR450. Nasty when it comes to repair. Another one to bad solder connections.

It's all about cutting costs and maximizing profits. Sad but true. Zenith moved out cause the cost of making here was too much, even though us Americans take pride in our work.