With Circuit City closing all their stores, Zenith brand may be dead as well...

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by waltchan

The last Zenith brand product is a DVD recorder/VCR combo. Not sure if I should get one.

Apparently, I picked up the last Zenith DVD recorder/VCR combo there was at Circuit City since I'm going to miss Zenith. It's a very strange design internally, because I would grade LG-made DVD/VCR combo (including JVC) the most trouble-prone manufacturer. Everything it's run by using surface-mount caps entirely. There are very very few regular sized caps used. There is no cooling fan at all, making the unit run very hot than necessary. LG-made DVD/VCR combos get the most 1-star reviews on Amazon. They're a lot worse than Funai, and I don't recommend LG-made DVD/VCR combos to any AK members.

[jfrog1983]

Let me guess, full of plastic parts and a tape mechanism you could probably bend in half with your bare hands!

I picked up a used Samsung VCR/DVD combo for my parents for $25, still works but is built really cheaply inside, like any other new VCR.

Dropping the HS-430UR on one of these would probably completely smash it

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by jfrog1983

Let me guess, full of plastic parts and a tape mechanism you could probably bend in half with your bare hands!

Of course. But I will mainly use the DVD recorder section.

Originally Posted by jfrog1983

Dropping the HS-430UR on one of these would probably completely smash it.

Don't be too excited with your HS-430UR. Sure, it will last a long time, but it's a poor choice by me to keep it going for the super long run (at least 40 years). I bet a Panasonic AG-2100, which I recommend at the VCR forever thread, will outlast your Mitsubishi HS-430UR.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by magmod93

Ok, I'm done... I'll post a pic of my radio collection..... can you find the American-Made Zenith's?

I spotted at least three: K723 (please correct me if I'm wrong on the model number), C/H845, K731. I own one of each of the last two; they are excellent radios, and are keepers as far as I am concerned.

If you ever find yourself having to sell your collection (Heaven forbid), by all means hold on to those Zeniths if you can, as they don't make them like that anymore. The only place to find these great old sets nowadays is on eBay, Craigslist, or at estate/yard/garage/rummage sales.

In its heyday, Zenith was darned nearly the top of the line in radio and television. It was a darn shame the company had to sell out to offshore interests in the late 1980s, although I read in this forum somewhere that Goldstar was manufacturing "Zenith" branded radios as recently as the '70s, so Zenith apparently was already offshoring its radios 35+ years ago. The television plant didn't follow suit entirely until GS took over, although many Zenith 12" portable b&w sets of the 1970s were made by a Zenith subsidiary in Mexico. The company's last radios, including its last wooden-cabinet set, the H430W (again, please correct me if I am wrong on that model number) with slide controls, a tuning meter and a little thing called a "bass booster" on the back, were actually made in Taiwan by yet another Zenith subsidiary (I even read somewhere that Zenith's "Circle of Sound" radios, with and without the clock, were already being manufactured as well by Gold Star as recently as the early '70s), so the radio side of Zenith had been offshoring for quite some time before the TV plant pulled up stakes in Chicago. The latter move killed the once-mighty Zenith Radio Corporation forever; the "final nail in its coffin", so to speak.

[jfrog1983]

Yeah the AG-2100 is built better, and in the 1980s, Panasonic mechanicals sure were built to last, take my PV-1545, its had heavy use and the heads are still good!

Is that AG-2100 even Hi-Fi? I just can't get past the low quality sound of non Hi-Fi vcrs although I do know they will outlast Hi-Fi units.

I guess linear stereo in SP doesn't sound too terrible, but Hi-Fi sure sounds so good.

But back to the thread, I've got a few old Zenith sets and I plan to keep them, I've never really been into newer Zenith stuff, I like their stuff when it was still made by them.

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by jfrog1983

Is that AG-2100 even Hi-Fi? I just can't get past the low quality sound of non Hi-Fi vcrs although I do know they will outlast Hi-Fi units.

No, AG-2100 is a 2-head mono video cassette player with no clock display on front and no record function. Very simple, oversized machine. The simpler, the better, and nothing will break.

[breetie]

Originally Posted by waltchan

No, AG-2100 is a 2-head mono video cassette player with no clock display on front and no record function. Very simple, oversized machine. The simpler, the better, and nothing will break.

Meh. Sorry, waltchan, I gotz to have my bellz-'n-whistles. And if it's not purdy, with multi-colored LEDs, displays, or various other complicated means of transmitting information, I don' want it!

I know. It's a weakness. Damn my eyes!