Gotta "VENT" Zenith on CL

[JCFitz]

Originally Posted by Chad Hauris

Speaking about this Zenith model specifically, was this before the bad CRT period? I got a very similar Zenith from Texas Recycles Day, which was a System 3 looking very similar to this and CRT was very weak...mfg date was 1991.
It looks like the CRT on the craigslist Zenith is still OK though.

On something like this with a private seller where the price is too high I would probably pass if the price were this high. Have never had success dealing with people who are that "proud" of an item. If at a secondhand store you can often wait for several months when the item doesn't sell and then deal at a fair price.

Yes this was before the bad crt period.Though they don't last like Chromacolor II tubes.The bad crts started coming out in 93'.A lot of them would get intermittent g-K shorts and blow the power supply regulator and they would get weak fast and have crappy pictures overall.The crts from Zenith started going downhill in the late 80s.Though I worked on a 1988 model that needed tuner grounds resoldered that had a very good tube and nice picture recently.The 90s 25" and 27" Zenith tubes were all crap IMO.
The only thing worse was an Emerson(Orion) 25" tube.All the early 90s ones would do like Zenith tubes only they would also take the horizontal output transistor and some resistors and the picture actually looked worse than the Zeniths. And Goldstar who took over Zenith as we all know had a 25" tube set that was a total p.o.s in the mid to late 80s.I rejuvenated some of those tubes on sets that were only 3 years old and the pictures sucked.A sign of what was coming from Zenith once Goldstar got their hands on them.
The 19" and smaller tubes from Zenith usually were a lot better and the 32" and 35" tubes fared better also.In the late 90s the tubes were better but they had some 25"that loved to eat video output and predriver transistors.I'd replace them but if if it happened again in a short time I'd tell them the bad news that their picture tube was causing the problem.No shorts would show on a crt checker.I suspect they arc and knock out the transistors.Zenith started having a lot of flyback failures in the 90s also.It was rare to get one bad on a 9-160 or System 3 set.Most of the problems with those were never the flyback except for the late 80s 19" set with a 9-351 sweep board.They all failed.They would always burn a hole in the flyback near the focus control.

[andy]

Originally Posted by JCFitz

The only thing worse was an Emerson(Orion) 25" tube.All the early 90s ones would do like Zenith tubes only they would also take the horizontal output transistor and some resistors and the picture actually looked worse than the Zeniths. And Goldstar who took over Zenith as we all know had a 25" tube set that was a total p.o.s in the mid to late 80s.I rejuvenated some of those tubes on sets that were only 3 years old and the pictures sucked.A sign of what was coming from Zenith once Goldstar got their hands on them.
The 19" and smaller tubes from Zenith usually were a lot better and the 32" and 35" tubes fared better also.

Some Orion CRTs were made by Zenith. They were easy to spot because they had a small Zenith lighting bolt on the label.

Zenith never made CRTs larger than 27" (at least not in the 90's). Those sets should have been ok since they didn't have Zenith CRTs.