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Old 04-02-2018, 07:03 PM
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bgadow bgadow is offline
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Location: Federalsburg, MD
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AlanInSitges View Post
This is a really interesting discussion. I wonder what percentage of these various rankings is based on the bias of personal perception and what percentage is more empirical.

For example, I have seen a few people mention Philco, Sylvania and Admiral sets. I grew up in a small town where we had Zenith and RCA dealers, and that's 95% of what everyone had. We were a Zenith family (19FC45 with the slidey-up-and-downy tuner - my interest in TVs started the day the guy came out to change the 4-lead capacitor that was recalled). By the time I started working at the TV shop, it had become a Quasar dealer but we still serviced mostly Zeniths. And I remember that anything that wasn't a Zenith, or maybe an RCA, was viewed with quite a bit of disdain - especially Admirals, Sylvanias, and Philcos. Those were considered hot garbage, unreliable and poorly made. I have no idea if that was true or not, but in my 15-year-old, small-town-myopic worldview, it was fact. But it's interesting that those brands would have had to come from Kansas City, 60+ miles away, and so it's possible we just discounted them as outsiders and not one of us.

Presumably there were also scores of Admiral towns, and Philco towns, etc.; What are the odds that the people listing those sets as among the best are from one of those towns?
I grew up in a GE town; our single dealer had once also sold Zenith & Admiral so you saw a few of those. The neighboring town was mostly Magnavox & Admiral, while another was Motorola & GE. Oddly, among those 3 little towns we didn't have a strong RCA dealer.
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