Phillips 25 Inch CRT

[Console User]

Looking for any information on the following:

I purchased a used 1999 Zenith Console Set Model B25A74R last year. I decided to take the back loose and look inside. I see it has the following CRT in it: A63AFW36X made by Phillips. I had a parts sheet for this particular set along. It shows in the parts list A63AGD01X. Can anyone tell me did Zenith also use the Phillips CRT in these late 90s-early 2000s sets or does this show that the CRT has been replaced in this Set? Also, how good of quality and lifespan did these two particular CRTs have? Thanks.

I had the 27 Inch Console Set Version of this particular Model, but unfortunately it literally fell apart when moving the set out.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Console User

Looking for any information on the following:

I purchased a used 1999 Zenith Console Set Model B25A74R last year. I decided to take the back loose and look inside. I see it has the following CRT in it: A63AFW36X made by Phillips. I had a parts sheet for this particular set along. It shows in the parts list A63AGD01X. Can anyone tell me did Zenith also use the Phillips CRT in these late 90s-early 2000s sets or does this show that the CRT has been replaced in this Set? Also, how good of quality and lifespan did these two particular CRTs have? Thanks.

I had the 27 Inch Console Set Version of this particular Model, but unfortunately it literally fell apart when moving the set out.

Around that time-frame, Zenith made rotten CRT's and it was right around the time L/G aquired Zenith and closed down the CRT plant. I have a Zenith set from that era, that has an EIA312 CRT which is Sylvania/Philips.
The set you have is a strange entry-level model. It seemed strange to see a set that new to have a rounded corner CRT.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Console User

Looking for any information on the following:

I purchased a used 1999 Zenith Console Set Model B25A74R last year. I decided to take the back loose and look inside. I see it has the following CRT in it: A63AFW36X made by Phillips. I had a parts sheet for this particular set along. It shows in the parts list A63AGD01X. Can anyone tell me did Zenith also use the Phillips CRT in these late 90s-early 2000s sets or does this show that the CRT has been replaced in this Set? Also, how good of quality and lifespan did these two particular CRTs have? Thanks.

I had the 27 Inch Console Set Version of this particular Model, but unfortunately it literally fell apart when moving the set out.

I hope you can restore your Zenith B25A74R TV, as these were very good sets made when Zenith was still in Chicago, IIRC (I don't recall exactly when Zenith left Chicago for Korea) and still making excellent televisions. I don't know, however, why it has a Philips CRT. It seems very unusual to me why a TV made by Zenith would have been built with anything other than a genuine Zenith CRT, unless the tube in yours is a replacement for the original. The latter seems very likely, considering how poorly made Zenith CRTs were toward the company's downfall in the late '80s, not to mention the problems the last Zenith TVs had, such as HV regulation failures and other problems too numerous to mention.

BTW, I cannot imagine why the cabinet of your 27" Zenith TV literally fell apart, unless it was poorly made to begin with or suffered some kind of serious damage while being moved. I am sure the original Zenith Radio Corporation of Chicago would not have allowed any of its consoles to leave the factory with a cabinet that poorly built, unless the cabinets, like the chassis and other parts of the set, were made offshore.

This whole thing speaks very poorly for Zenith (what is or may be left of it, anyway) in the 21st century, which for many years was one of the best brands of televisions, IMHO, there ever was; the company had been founded in 1918. Their slogan for many years was "the quality goes in before the name goes on", to say nothing of their other slogan which referred to their TVs, "Zenith. The Royalty of television."

Zenith was my favorite brand of TV, stereo and radio for many years. (I had a great-uncle, now deceased, who used to call me "Mister Z" because of my liking for Zenith radios and TVs.) I still have several Zenith radios and one Zenith color TV, model SMS1917SG; that set is 27 years old, and it still worked quite well the last time I used it. I also had a Zenith J-121-Y 12" b&w portable for twenty years; it worked exceedingly well during that time (never had five minutes' worth of trouble with it, save for the detented UHF channel selector jamming on one channel some time in the '80s or '90s) but I had to get rid of it when I moved to my current residence, a very small one-bedroom apartment, in 1999. As small as this apartment is, I simply have no room to collect old televisions as I did when I lived at the other house, which had a large basement.


One Zenith TV I hated like heck to get rid of was a 23" b&w console I had rescued from a trash pile in my old neighborhood in the early 1970s. All but two of the tubes (the 1J3 HV rectifier and the 23ANP4 CRT) had been removed, so I had to put all new tubes in the set, but it was well worth it. When I turned the set on after installing the last new tube, I was greeted by a very good picture on all three (at that time, early 1970s) network TV stations in Cleveland. One other thing I liked about that Zenith console was its excellent audio system, which used a 6BN6 gated-beam discriminator and a 6BQ5 output tube, not to mention a rather large speaker mounted in the base of the cabinet. I liked the sound so well I eventually connected an FM tuner to the set's audio system, by connecting the tuner's preamplifier output across the TV's volume control.

I enjoyed this setup, not to mention the TV itself (the picture was great), for about two years, then I found out I would be moving (long story/OT) and would have to get rid of the set, not to mention every other old TV I had in my basement at the time. This bothered me mightily for at least two reasons: one, the amount of work I had put into the Zenith set to get it working as well as it was, and two, I would have had to give up this TV anyway in 1972 (again, long story and OT).

Believe me, I would have liked to have been able to keep that Zenith console, as well as I had it working after I put the new tubes in, not to mention installing the FM tuner I mentioned, but circumstances at the time just did not allow it.

[zeno]

Several CRT's were used then

Pilllips AKA NAP / Sylvania EIA 312
RCA/ Thompson EIA 274

The RCA has a bonded yoke so if you cange an RCA to something else
you need a yoke & neck components. You may also need to change the
face mask. The RCA jug was the better one.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[John Adams]

I have a 32” Zenith AVI series that came with a Sylvania, EIA 312 tube. Bought in early 90’s.

[dishdude]

Originally Posted by John Adams

I have a 32” Zenith AVI series that came with a Sylvania, EIA 312 tube. Bought in early 90’s.

I believe the largest CRT Zenith ever made was 27".

[zeno]

Originally Posted by dishdude

I believe the largest CRT Zenith ever made was 27".

Yup almost all size colors from 13" to 27"
Roundies - deltas - EFL's - inlines - FTM's
That includes Zenith ( EIA 343 ) & Rauland div ( EIA 1101 ).
They sold them to a bunch of mfgs & had displays for military, computer,
automotive ( GM) etc.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by John Adams

I have a 32” Zenith AVI series that came with a Sylvania, EIA 312 tube. Bought in early 90’s.

I bought a 32" Zenith in the mid-90's that had a Japanese sourced CRT.
I was talking to another tech and he mentioned that it was probably a Toshiba.
I often wondered how a firm the made one of the best CRT's, turned into one that made the worst!

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I bought a 32" Zenith in the mid-90's that had a Japanese sourced CRT.
I was talking to another tech and he mentioned that it was probably a Toshiba.
I often wondered how a firm the made one of the best CRT's, turned into one that made the worst!

Environmentalist...The CRT division went to hell when chemicals they had been using were banned, and regulations forced them to change their process.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Environmentalist...The CRT division went to hell when chemicals they had been using were banned, and regulations forced them to change their process.

That's interesting. Do you know what chemicals?

The only environmental problem I ever heard of was cadmium in the green phosphor, but that was eliminated much earlier and had nothing to do with reliability of the tubes.

(Note, there was no reason I would have heard of the source of the reliability problems, so I am just curious and not implying it wasn't environmental issues.)

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Environmentalist...The CRT division went to hell when chemicals they had been using were banned, and regulations forced them to change their process.

I suspect it was freon cleaning of election gun parts that was discontinued.

jr

[dishdude]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Environmentalist...The CRT division went to hell when chemicals they had been using were banned, and regulations forced them to change their process.

Yeah a lot of chemicals were banned in the 90's, and I think that caused a lot of the issues Zenith CRTs from this era experienced. Also why you saw a lot of cars from this era with factory paint peeling off in sheets.

[dishdude]

I remember delivering these consoles when they were new, they were an odd frankenset. I was always a Zenith fan and these fascinated me, I believe they were assembled in Tennessee. Board from Mexico, CRT from who knows where and the cabinet was from TN. I thought the cabinets were decent quality even if they were a lot like those Sauder bookcases you would build yourself at home. The 76R was the high standing model with VCR storage under the CRT, I really liked those.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

I suspect it was freon cleaning of election gun parts that was discontinued.

jr

Thanks - that makes sense

[radiotvnut]

Starting in about 1991, the quality of Zenith/Rauland picture tubes started going way downhill and got even worse by about '93-'94. These horrible CRTs were made until about '98, when the CRT plant was closed and Zenith started getting tubes from other suppliers (mainly Philips/Sylvania and RCA/Thomson). Those later Zenith tubes would prematurely get weak and/or intermittently short. Heck, I've seen some new Zenith sets from that period that looked like they had a weak CRT out of the box. When they shorted, they'd cremate the power supply and/or blow out parts in the video driver stage. You could replace the cremated parts and the set would work for five minutes, five hours, a week, or a month and then the tube would short, causing those parts to blow up, and then you'd have a call-back on your hands that generally resulted in refunding the customer for the repair. These intermittently shorting tubes would not usually show up on a CRT tester and it got so that when I saw one of those sets with cremated parts in the power supply, I condemned it on the spot. As far as when the tubes went weak, they would not take a hit from a CRT rejuvenator (kind of hard to rejuvenate something that was crap to start with). At best, they'd look good for a brief period and then fall back down to worse than they were to start with. The Philips and RCA tubes that they started using in circa '98 were far superior, but the damage to Zenith had been done. I believe it was '99, when LG fully took over Zenith and a few years later, the Zenith name was all but mothballed. I think 2004 was the last year for a Zenith console and I know someone who has a Zenith console from 2002 that is still in use. I can't remember if it has the Philips or RCA tube, but the last time I saw it, it still looked pretty good. Those '90's Zenith tubes are, without a doubt, the worst I've ever encountered and most of the sets that used them are now in the landfill.