[ggregg]

Panasonic or any brand that they made. They were tough as nails. From the top loaders through the late nineties, they were the king of the hill as far as reliability went. Hitachi was also very dependable, my personal favorite, but the mechanism used SIX! different belts. Almost always was the only problem they would ever have though.

Sanyo/Fisher units were trouble prone, like anything else they made at the time but the worst were the early Korean machines, Funai and Goldstar. The Zenith branded Goldstars looked like a million bucks but were real pieces of crap.

I worked on VCR's from 1990 to 1999 and was amazing to see how the quality of the product downgraded. Even then, we were repairing old nice machines instead of buying new ones. The best ones had already been made.

Sorry if this is posted in the wrong category. Maybe should be 1990-2000.