The best solid state color TVs ever made

[dishdude]

I enjoyed reading through the worst thread, so of course my curiosity has me wondering what some of you regard as the best SS TVs ever made. I'd think reliability, performance and serviceability would be key factors.

[radiotvnut]

D and E-line flat chassis Zenith, vertical chassis CC2, 1st generation Zenith System 3 with the VRT power supply and 9-153 HV/sweep module. Yes, they had issues, but they were usually easy to resolve and a straightforward circuit.

PC-chassis GE. They saved the best for last and that chassis was used in 19" and 25" sets. Usually, a few capacitors would cure any problems that they had.

C1 and C2 chassis Magnavox sets. The T991, T995, and T815 were also decent, as long as you kept spare safety capacitors on hand and resoldered all of the module contacts.

Late '70s Quasar, after the Matsushita takeover. The ones from the '80s were not as good.

[Electronic M]

I'd count Zenith CCIIs both horizontal and vertical chassis high on the list. The delta gun tubes were nearly immortal, the sets were serviceable and had failry minimal wharts...Heck many are still going today without having had the back off ever.

Also the only sets I know of that have been left on during house fires and remained working when the firefighters had the fire out and wiped the soot off the screen to notice, survived being flipped on their face in earthquakes, and other abuse that ought to kill a TV.

They did have issues with safety, and VRT caps, tripplers occasionally, intermittent connections and other small issues, but besides the first 3 parts they'd usually keep running with minor degradation of performance...often for more than 30 years.

Modular Motorola and RCA were close, but switch mode power supplies and SCR sweep respectively weren't fun for techs that were transitioning from tube to SS.

[JohnCT]

The most reliable SS chassis I ever saw was the RCA CTC44, which was sort of a production unitized chassis "prototype" that led to the later modular XL100.

We sold two dozen of these (they were pricey) and only had one ever come in for service, and I repaired exactly one more after that that we didn't sell.

RCA also had a run in the 1980s (other than the early 1981 flyback fiasco) that were ridiculously reliable. Once the more complicated chassis came out like the 140 did we see some RCAs come in, but those weren't terrible even if they weren't trouble free.

We also sold Zenith and Quasar at that time, and Zenith was always hit and miss (more misses is you ask me). The "vertical" chassis series was stout to be sure but were constantly plagued by module contact issues, and the later Triple Plus chassis could be glitchy. The nice thing about the Zeniths of those years is that they were 100% modular so as long as you could get a yellow label module, you could fix it easy. The rebuilt red label modules had about a 30% failure rate right out of the box, so I stopped buying Zenith red label boards and rebuilt them as we got them.

The Quasars were pretty good overall but they just felt like they were built out of toilet paper and popsicle sticks. They used paper phenolic boards were Zenith and RCA were using glass and they used garbage trimmers for adjustments.

Sony's of the 80s were pretty good but not without issues.

John

[etype2]

I purchased the following Sony color sets new back in the day. All continue to operate well without any servicing except as noted.

1968 KV 7010U Wife gave away in 2006. Found replacement.
1969 KV 1210U Wife gave away in 2006. Found replacement.
1969 KV 1220U.
1970 KV 1720U Sold 2004.
1973 KV 1722.
1980 KX-2501A Profeel.
2004 KD-34XBR960

[radiotvnut]

I always liked the RCA CTC169 chassis and that was probably their best Thomson-era chassis. The main problems they had were capacitors in the power supply that would cause the B+ to skyrocket and blow the HOT, and those caps would sometimes blow the chopper transistor and driver IC. On those, you had to use the correct RCA parts, or the set would not hold up. I knew of one TV technician, who was not all that great, who'd slap whatever kind of old HOT that he could find on a used board in a 169, and then talk negatively about the set when it blew in 3 days and he got a callback. I tried to tell him what he was doing wrong, but he wouldn't listen and told me that he was just going to stop working on 169s. I told him to send them all to me because I liked working on them and I rarely ever had one come back to bite me.

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by etype2

I purchased the following Sony color sets new back in the day. All continue to operate well without any servicing except as noted.

1968 KV 7010U Wife gave away in 2006. Found replacement.
1969 KV 1210U Wife gave away in 2006. Found replacement.
1969 KV 1220U.
1970 KV 1720U Sold 2004.
1973 KV 1722.
1980 KX-2501A Profeel.
2004 KD-34XBR960

I guess you don't have brownouts where you live...

John

[etype2]

Never experienced a brownout. Lucky.

[zeno]

Gotta go with RTVNUT
Magy C1 & 2 great sets. Sure beat the dog hybrid & the over engineered
C3 and up.

GE PC "build it right, its the last hurrah ! " Is this really a GE ?? Loved them.

First place is the Zenith flat chassii AND since they are almost the same
the CC2 uprights. In them days Buick & Caddy almost the same. The flat
chassis was the caddy.

RCA CTC169 was best RCA ever IMHO. Never junked one & awesome
pix. Kinda fun to work on. What was that diode CR4118 ?? They all
got a new one. The non modular CTC44 was great IIRC just damper diodes &
IF transistors. Great 1st gen SS set.

Sylvania is the first non modular chassis. GT Matics with dark / lite CRT
had a killer pix but if you got 4 yrs out of a CRT count yourself VERY lucky.

Admiral built very good console chassis, another case of last hurrah. BUT
the M10 13, 17 & 19" chassis was a dog. AOC days they went to no modular
chassii. For a few yrs they were very good but them they used a FBT that was guarantied to brew up at two yrs old.

Nippon sets later. Enuf fer now.
73 Zeno
LFOD !

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by JohnCT

I guess you don't have brownouts where you live...

John

So what’s the story about Sony tvs and brownouts? Certain years, certain designs killed by brownouts?

jr

[Alex KL-1]

I have witnessed some 80's japanese TV's in waiting rooms where their owners have said that these TV's have been in use for well over a decade. Especially one Sharp here in the driver's/car pool; is from mid-80's and only recently was retired due to absence of HDMI input ... (was working, with great bright)!
Some serious run hours for this CRT.

[ARC Tech-109]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

So what’s the story about Sony tvs and brownouts? Certain years, certain designs killed by brownouts?

jr

I've had problems with those Sanken STR3000 series hybrid regulators on the larger Sony KV TV's from the 80's, don't recall if it was due to a brownout low voltage condition but they were a pain regardless.

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

So what’s the story about Sony tvs and brownouts? Certain years, certain designs killed by brownouts?

jr

Sony TVs of the 70s were pretty reliable but they didn't like running at 90V or below - in fact, when the voltage went down the current went up and they'd blow. They eventually revised the design. Before they did, rolling brownouts in New York city particularly would cause a power supply failure on an otherwise properly working TV. I can't recall the chassis involved any more - maybe someone else remember them.

What caught a lot of techs back then was that when SS electronically regulated power supplies came out, a Variac was a useful tool when troubleshooting them. Many manufacturers like Zenith, RCA, Sylvania, Motorola, etc. had flowcharts that would often recommend starting the chassis at 60V or so and bring them up to 130V measuring for current and voltage regulation after the supply was repaired and to test the performance of the regulation.

Bringing up these Sonys on a variac would destroy them even if they were properly repaired.

John

[jr_tech]

Thanks

I will avoid using the variac on early Sony sets, although I think I did on a KV-9000 that got flooded, without harm.

jr

[Tube TV]

Without a doubt one of these RCA's



I have one that I picked up used for $3 at a thrift shop back in 2002. I estimate that It's ran at least 70,000 hours as a surveillance monitor from 2007 to 2018 till it was having something arcing in the HV when it's cold and first startup in the morning.

It still works and outside of a bit of burn in the picture is still sharp as a tack and the colors are bright and dead on accurate. I've still have to track the arcing down and correct it.