Who Actually had the Best Picture?

[eThink]

Originally Posted by Duane

... If standard set,then you have a lot of choices in a direct view CRTs.
If you could find a Sony KV-32XBR100,jump on it.One of the best sets ever as far as picture quality is concerned,but it's not HD. ...
.

I have owned a Sony 32XBR100 for approximately 6 years. I purchased this set, new in a sealed box, in Fall 2000 at a Sony Outlet for $900. In 1990, I found many "rave" reviews about the 32XBR100.

I have been pleased with this set, although it did need to be services in the third year of ownership.

Can anyone provide any insights as to what made the 32XBR100 such a desirable TV?

[reggaenaut]

There is no mention here of Samsung.

[andy]

Originally Posted by reggaenaut

There is no mention here of Samsung.

For good reason, they only make junk.

[colortrakker]

Search up "slimfit," for example, and you'll find hordes of threads complaining about the geometry problems of these sets.

[andy]

Originally Posted by colortrakker

Search up "slimfit," for example, and you'll find hordes of threads complaining about the geometry problems of these sets.

Not to mention their famous "blue label" monitor CRTs. They were famous for having their emission fall to zero after only a couple of years. They were worse than Zenith's CRTs and they made them for at least 5 years.

How about their VCRs which were flimsy junk even in the 80's when everyone was making solid VCRs?

I recently gave them another chance with a Samsung HD upconverting DVD player. It would have been great except that it skipped ahead a full 30 seconds when going from fast search to play (if you hit play when you saw the show come back, it started playing 30 seconds into the show). This made it useless for skipping the commercials on DVDs from my DVD recorder.

[jstout66]

Boy did I get a shock today. I had been following this thread to see what everyone thought of the newer sets. I saw a post by Andy that said to avoid Toshiba's as they don't make their own sets anymore, and have HORRIBLE Orion tubes. I thought "Nah... that can't be" I bought a new set in early 2004. At the time I lived in a small apartment and was limited for space. I bought a 24" Sony Wega. That set had a HORRIBLE picture, and after I bought it I went on eopinions and saw many many many complaints. I then looked online for a comparable set, and saw decent reviews for the comparable Toshiba. I wanted the 24" flat-screen with good audio. I then had the store pick up the Sony and deliver the Toshiba. The quality and picture was better than the Sony, and I have been bragging up the Tosiba and telling people to get one when they ask my opinion on a new set. I was cleaning today and as I was cleaning my Toshiba (manufactured in November 2003) I could see the tube label thru the vents. YEP.... an Orion tube. No wonder my 1975 Zenith Chromacolor has a better picture. Altho the Toshiba isn't too bad, I'm shocked that they were "on the cheap" in 2003 I wonder how long that Orion tube is gonna last?

[slow_jazz]

look for an older mitsubishi. i've had one for years and only had one service call on it. look for one built in the 80's...

[Duane]

Originally Posted by eThink

I have owned a Sony 32XBR100 for approximately 6 years. I purchased this set, new in a sealed box, in Fall 2000 at a Sony Outlet for $900. In 1990, I found many "rave" reviews about the 32XBR100.

I have been pleased with this set, although it did need to be services in the third year of ownership.

Can anyone provide any insights as to what made the 32XBR100 such a desirable TV?

The comb filter for one.Made for a smoother looking picture.I believe this set used the same phosphers as their professional sets,which produced better colors,especially reds.The set just had a presentation that no other consumer set had at the time.The Proton TVs were very close.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by slow_jazz

look for an older mitsubishi. i've had one for years and only had one service call on it. look for one built in the 80's...

I bought an RCA CTC-185 19" TV in 1999. Today, almost seven years later, it still works as well as when it was new. This TV has also had only one repair--the RF port on the tuner PC board. Set still has its original CRT. Say what you will about late '80s-'90s RCA/Thomson sets, but once you get past the tuner grounding problems in the earlier ones, these sets are like Eveready Energizer batteries--they just keep going and going; at least mine has so far. RCA has also seemingly gotten around the problems they had with the CRTs in some of the same sets with the tuner problems. The picture on mine is as good as a good photograph, both with on-air signals from cable and my VCR and DVD player. I have a friend whose parents had a 25" RCA Guide Plus TV, 1990s vintage; the CRT failed after only two years, but I think that was just a case of a tube with a design flaw--I have heard that if you get an RCA with a good tube, the CRT will work well for years. I expect to be using this TV with an ATSC digital cable box when the broadcasting standards go all digital in 2009. Another set that has given me excellent service, and still has its original CRT and has had absolutely no servicing done on it, is my Zenith Sentry 2 19" TV. I got this set as a birthday present in 1995, used it daily for four years until I moved to my present apartment, and now only use it to back up the RCA. The Zenith still makes an excellent picture after eleven years; it is in line to replace the RCA if and when the latter goes belly-up (after seven years I don't intend to have it repaired again).

I cannot speak for Mitsubishi TVs, but a good friend of mine has no fewer than three Toshiba TVs in his house; every one of them works well on cable, or so he tells me. I did see a 32" Mitsu TV near the trash barrels behind my apartment about six months ago; good AKer I am, I was tempted to grab it, but two things stopped me: one, the set was far too big and heavy to move by myself, and two, I did not know whether or not it was working. Even if I could have horsed that set down to my place, I didn't want to be disappointed if it didn't work or, worse, if it blew a circuit breaker in the basement of the building--or worse yet, if it started smoking or (gasp!) caught fire. I figure I'll wait until the large-screen flat-panel sets become reasonable in price (for me that would be well under $500) before I get a TV as big as that Mitsu was. Another problem with the Mitsu was that I don't have anything in my apartment large enough to support a big TV like that. The utility cart I have my RCA set, DVD player, VCR and cable box on is just durable enough for a 19" TV and the aforementioned devices; anything larger would cave it in in five seconds flat.

[rcaman]

i have been in the tv repair business for about 25 years. the toshiba made by orion have a great picture. and i havent found them to be troublesome. i would just as soon have one of those as anythingelse out there. but if i were to go buy a new direct view it would have to be a sanyo. they are still a damn good set. and are made in usa and i sold rca for over 20 years and rca has gone to the dogs pure crap. steve

[rcaman]

and i f i might add rca made me a darn good living for many many years they made some terriffic tv sets. some out there 20 years old and still going strong. thanks again rca you were good at one time. steve

[jstout66]

Hey Steve, Thanks for the reassuring advice on my Toshiba. I had just heard such bad stuff about Orion, that I thought I was avoiding that, by shelling out money for what I thought was a "pure Toshiba" set. So very cool you haven't run into any problems. I hope I get alot of use out of it altho I tend to not use it much. I'm always in my "office" where the Chromacolor is. I did buy a new RCA in 2000. I gave it away as it had NO input jacks for anything. However the people I gave it to use it daily and it still has a fantastic picture. It's a CTC-185. I had heard that Thomson sold RCA recently and now they are the worst of the worst of Chinese junk. That is too bad that such a good name is being used and drug down like that. At least LG isn't putting anything out with the Zenith logo on it as far as I know (thank god)

[kx250rider]

Did anyone mention the Sony Profeel series of the early 80s? Those are one of the best overall pictures that I can think of too... KX-1211, KX-1901 & KX-2501. The CRTs were very hi-res, and they had smoked glass which made for beautiful contrast!

Charles

[NowhereMan 1966]

I walked into a Radio Shack yesterday and saw LCD HDTV's with pictures so pasty and bland, I wouldn't pay $100 for the set. I don't know if they were not adjusted correctly or not, but if that is the best they can do, my 25", 1982 Zenith System 3 could eat those sets for lunch.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by jstout66

I did buy a new RCA in 2000. I gave it away as it had NO input jacks for anything. However the people I gave it to use it daily and it still has a fantastic picture. It's a CTC-185. I had heard that Thomson sold RCA recently and now they are the worst of the worst of Chinese junk. That is too bad that such a good name is being used and drug down like that. At least LG isn't putting anything out with the Zenith logo on it as far as I know (thank god)

That's news to me. I didn't know Thomson had washed its hands of RCA. All the more reason for me to keep my own CTC-185; like yours did and aparently still does for its new owners, mine has a very good picture, as I mentioned in my last post. My set has the on-board tuner (as did all CTC-185 and earlier sets), but once the grounds around it are soldered properly, the TV will go on working well for years. As I said, mine has almost seven years on it and still makes a very good picture on cable (Time-Warner digital). I'm not interested in high-definition, so when all television goes to digital standards in 2009 I intend to be using this set with a box, as I am now, as long as it still works.

As to LG no longer using the Zenith lightning bolt logo on its (LG's) televisions, I agree with you; it's just as well. From what I've heard about LG TV sets, they were and are not anywhere nearly as good as the genuine Zenith sets were. I think, liking Zenith TV as much as I do (I've owned several Zenith TVs and still have a 1995 Sentry 2), that LG's use of the Zenith logo, under license though it probably was, was misleading the public into believing they were buying a genuine Zenith TV just because LG's first flat-panel sets had the Z logo at the base of the screen. I can only guess how many of these people got a very rude surprise the first time their new "Zenith" flat-panel TV burst into flames, leaked coolant solution all over the PC boards (the latter was the subject of a recall of certain Zenith flat-panel projection TVs of early-mid-1990s vintage because of a tear in a gasket) or developed other problems, some of which were not covered under the warranty. These folks may have heard about Zenith's 80+-year reputation for quality, and fully expected the new set to live up to it; when their new set did not live up to it, well, that soured them on Zenith forevermore. Now it seems as if RCA is headed down the same road. Zenith faded into oblivion when it was bought out by Gold Star; now that the latter has ceased using the Z logo on its TVs, we can finally say RIP Zenith--for good, as that logo was the last vestige of the company as we formerly knew it. Now that Thomson has sold its interests in RCA, the stylized RCA logo will probably be abandoned eventually as well by whomever bought out the company. Too bad, as RCA was the first major manufacturer of TV sets after World War II; this company invented all-electronic television as well. NBC, which was operated by RCA in the 1950s (years before they went down the drain when GE bought them out in 1986--grrr), proudly stated on the test patterns used by its operated stations (WNBC New York, WNBQ-TV Chicago, WNBW Washington, D.C., KNBC Los Angeles and WNBK Cleveland at the time) that they used the RCA television system. Now that GE has the network by the tail, things are starting to get worse. GE has a slogan on its commercials it uses during Meet the Press and other programs that states, "GE. Imagination at work." I don't think so. If the powers-that-be at GE were really that imaginative, the programming put out by NBC wouldn't be nearly as bad as it is, for the most part. One of the worst mistakes GE ever made, IMO, was to put Brian Williams at the NBC Nightly News anchor desk when Tom Brokaw stepped down. Brokaw's departure from NBC News was one major reason I quit watching NBC for news, but that's another story.

This is, however, another example, IMHO, of how the quality of NBC television programming has deteriorated over the 20 years since GE bought out RCA. My point is that it is not just the RCA name and reputation that has lost its luster (in a huge way) during that time, but the network's programming has gone downhill as well. There was speculation, IIRC, some time ago that one of the three major TV networks would go out of business as cable, the Internet, and other alternative video carriers became more and more popular. With on-demand news being so popular (podcasts and Netcasts are streamed over the Internet by all three networks today), the future of the 6:30 p.m. local time network newscast could well be in jeopardy, and not only on NBC. I really don't know which network is most in danger of going dark, if any of them are, but in this age of news-on-demand it wouldn't surprise me if one of them does just that, maybe not tomorrow, next week or next year, but eventually. Even the sports segment of the local TV news in many cities is in danger of being phased out, as I read in a recent edition of the TVSpy daily television industry e-newsletter. (It's available at www.tvspy.com and is free; all you need do is sign up at the site.) It's apparently a fact: When the sports comes on during many local television news programs, viewers simply change the channel or else otherwise ignore it. Again, this is in large part due to the many different sources now available for news (sports news or otherwise); the Internet, newspapers and even your cell phone can deliver more in-depth and, in the case of the Internet and cellular, real-time sports news as it happens, so I am not the least bit surprised that the six- and eleven-p.m. sportscast may be in imminent danger of extinction in major markets.