Quote:
Originally Posted by matt99
So was the "resurgence" in quality in the CTC-7 due to the new 21CYP22? I'm guessing they had to re-engineer the chassis for the new tube. I didn't know the CTC-5 had these problems. With this in mind I'll never specifically go out and buy one, but if one comes my way cheap or free, well...
Thanks for the reply.
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Yes the CTC-7 and later were decent sets performance wise. The 21AXP22, 21CYP22, and the later 21FBP,FJP,GUP....etc. were all basically electrically interchangeable* so there was no major chassis redesign to accommodate the newer ones. Generally speaking RCA had a tendency to push their flyback transformers rather hard (some chassis had it worse than others) and thus those sets tend blow those parts I'm also not a fan of TVs with circuit boards (which RCA jumped on early with the CTC-4) so I tend to prefer Zenith sets, and recommend them to those wanting to put many hours of run time on a set with minimal need for upkeep.
That said I own a CTC-4 project set (and have a good idea of what it can do), 2 CTC-15 clones, a clone which is like a CTC-16 roundy but drives a rectangular CRT, and a local (arcanine) dropped off CTC-16, and CTC-20 roundys (saying get one working well, and keep the other)...So at the rate I'm going I'll probably see every tube RCA color cross my bench by the time I hit retirement..... The CTC-16 and later I don't recommend either the design of the HV cage is kind of retarded on those sets and flyback failure is too common on those for my taste (they are the kind of sets that like the CTC-5 I'll never be actively looking for, but would take for cheap if happened upon).
*The 21AXP had a metal bell at HV potential (IIRC it was the only MASS-PRODUCTION metal cone color CRT) so later sets with metal CRT mounts would be too much of a pain to modify to accept that tube (plus if you have an AXP you could probably trade an AXP for 2-4 FBPs scarcity/value wise), but the opposite, putting an all-glass round CRT in a AXP based set is easy to do on many early sets (trust me I've done it). The CYP was an odd duck having 2 HV connectors on it (one connected to the other thru a resistor), but aside from needing a change in HV lead ends a CYP can work in any set and other glass tubes can be subbed for it easily.