Best color CRT?
 

Sorry if this has already been hashed out but I'm curious as to what most feel to be the best color tube. Guess it pretty much boils down to a discussion between RCA/Zenith and Sony.

When I say "best" I mean best picture and not necessarily most durable. Obviously the chassis directly impacts the quality of the picture, but realizing that many sets have had different brand tubes installed in them (except for Trinitrons) I was hoping that others could offer their opinions on this. What sayeth youse?

The Sylvania black faced delta gun CRT's of the '70's looked the best; but, they usually didn't last long. I have such a set that's going to be getting a Zenith CCII tube when the weather warms up.

RCA tubes from the early-to-mid '70's also looked nice and they would usually rejuvenate OK when weak. By the late '70's, RCA tubes suffered from quality issues and didn't last long. They got their act together by the early '80's and their inline tubes from that era looked nice and usually lasted a long time.

Zenith delta gun tubes from the '70's looked great and they held up better than most anything else.

The Sony Trinitron tubes looked good; but, some models tended to lose emission and they don't rejuvenate well. I've had several late '70's-early '80's Trinitrons where the green gun would be strong, while the red and blue would be dead.

So, if I were to pick a CRT based on it's overall picture quality and longevity, I'd go with a '70's Zenith delta gun CCII crt.

i agree 100 per cent.the 25vdmp sylvania was the best looking crt ever,they had a short life though.the zenith chromacolor tubes were almost as good but held up much longer.i have a zenith chromacolor set now that has a 25vdmp22 in it.the picture is amazing.the sams states it was an option back in 1976.great set.the rca tubes from the early 70s seemed to take a jolt much better than others.just remember,zenith made the first black matrix picture tube.sylvania probably built it for them.regardless,these delta guns were the absolute best

Zenith introduced the first black-matrix CRTs in 1969 with their first Chromacolor sets for the 1969-70 model years for TV sets. Zenith would then set the standard for many years to come when it came to color CRTs. The first black-matrix CRTs were detla-gun tubes with black-matrix inline CRTs coming on the scene in about 1974-75. The Toshiba Blackstripe CRT is a well-known early black matrix inline CRT.

Thanks for the replies. Mention of Sylvania surprised me but hearing good things about the Zeniths confirmed my thoughts. Guess CCII's are the vintage video equivalent of a mid 70's Marantz stereo :music:

The Sylvania 23VCGP22 and 25VDMP22... Black face/black matrix, and didn't have a non-glare lens to blur the detail. Second would be the Zenith Chromacolor 19VDZP22 (factory issue in 19" 4-tube hybrid and delta gun Chro II models). For roundies, the HR19VGUP22 (military-spec 21FJ).

Charles

I have a Sylania 25VDMP22, and agree, its great! I was messing about with a OTA color bar dipplay and was impressed by how nice the color looks, and has the best yellow that I have seen.

As far as life goes the zenith and rca tubes hold up very well. The majority of those sylvanias test dead and are very dim.
We have an 84 Mitsubishi monitor thats very impressive when it comes to picture quality and life. Its used daily and tests like new still. Not sure who made the crt.

for my opinion are: Sony 20" trinitron
ITT 20" delta
PHILIPS delta
RCA 27" line
Sylvania 27" line

As far as the Trinitron CRT is concerned, I have seen many in my day and the 30" in My KV-3000R wins hands down...

The factory RCA HI-LITE CRT in my CTC-40 looks excellent, Very vivid reds as well.

I agree completely that the Zenith '70's tubes were the best in sharpness, overall performance, and mine still looks great! I have seen this in several '70's zenith chromacolor tubes. As far as the progression in tube technology, and the companion circuitry that produce really awesome pictures my tube is the Dynaflat Samsung tube. My Panasonic 34" big cabinet "bet you can't steal it" HDTV uses a lot of the same chassis technology with variable scan speed, dynamic focusing, multi-warp-speed, dynamic spacial diffraction, inter modal dot colorization enhanced magnetically and a few other things I can't quite invent out of thin air. I think these tubes are quite similar to support the same performance claims in their advertising. I'm quite impressed with the technology they used to make a really great picture from NTSC, and put that in a big tube! But for its time, and performance Zenith Chromacolor tubes are "The Bomb!"

Is this tube medium resolution or does it have the same dot pitch as the 21FJ?

Among non-HD sets sold to consumers, I will take the late-1980s Sony XBR Pro over anything, anything else I have ever seen. Fantastic HV regulation and essentially no "ringing"/edge enhancement on vertical lines; these two areas are where I have just not seen any non-Sony set compete. Do a needle-pulse test on this set next to any other, and see what kind of undistorted contrast you can get out of both displays. I remember reading of someone who actually connected such a signal to the system feeding all the TVs in a store once, and the manager almost had a heart attack with the results!

That's a good question, and I don't know... The "HR" at the beginning, if I"m correct, means High Res., but that's subjective of course. There's very little data on it. I got mine from Boeing, and it appears to have the same size dots as the 21FJ. But it sure has a great picture, and was the easiest roundie (out of thousands literally) that I've done a setup on in the last 35 years. It almost converged itself, LOL.

Charles

Or a Sansui:banana::music::D

"Philips/Valvo". I heard that the '70's one lasted 20-30 yrs.
I heared that "Sony" <<Trinitron>> picture tubes had problems in the '80's. But in the '90's they where good. I've seen some 1990-1994 "Sony" tv's still in use.
I think "Hitachi" made good pictures tube too. I have an "Hitachi" tv made in september of 1988, the picture tube is weak, but still working.

That the tube was simple to converge would make sense, since they probably cherry picked the best of the best tubes to meet whatever specs that the military set for these.

Most of the setup procedures and issues with color tubes is based on manufacturing tolerances. If it were only possible to re-jig these once they were under vacuum.

CRT screen was made by Mitsubishi also. Mitsubishi made everything. Mitsubishi was the most reliable TV brand during the early 80s, according to the vintage Consumer Reports. It stopped becoming #1 beginning in 1986, and the new #1 was awarded to Panasonic, which it retained its #1, most reliable rating for 15 consecutive years, until it was dethroned by Sanyo beginning in 2001.

For modern, new sets, the best picture would be the Sony KD-34XBR960. It's HD and the last Sony set with its super fine pitch tube.

The Philips 20AX Inline CRT made from 1974 to about 1980 is one of the best color CRTs ever made,

I once had some old scrapped railway station monitors fitted with 20AX CRTs, they worked 24/7 for 25+ years, the screens were horribly burnt by the static characters yet the guns still had plenty of emissions left.

Trinitrons CRTs are rarely durable, i've seen many weak trinitrons from any decade, the only ones that seems to hold up pretty good are the small early 70s ones.

Early 80s Hitachis were the worst crap of their days IMHO!!

i failed the mention the silvertone tube from the late 60s early 70s.they had a nice look to them.maybe rcs clones but something was different.i also like the philco hybrid crts.certain admirals looked nice too.in the mid to late 90s i saw some daewoo sets that had a fine picture.but my favorite will always be the sylvania 25vdmp22 and the 25vamp22

Who remembers the Sharp Linytron? I recall first seeing them branded as a Sears model. They were Sharp's response to the Trinitron as they both featured vertical RGB lines in lieu of triads.

Actually, I was just given a '90 BPC 13" Sharp Linytron. I think the Sharp Linytron came out ni the mid '70's and some of those sets carried the Truetone (Western Auto) and Airline (Wards) brand names. To me, the '70's and early '80's Sharps had the best picture. I remember seeing some 25" and 27" Sharp TV's from the late '80's-early '90's that looked horrible, even when they were fairly new. I don't think the Linytron tube was anything special since they appear to be the same as any other inline tube from the '70's and '80's.

Found an interesting online article from a 1974 issue of Popular Mechanics on the state of the art of CRTs here: CLICK

The main differences (as I understand them) between the Trinitron and Linytron is that the former had a slotted mask which had continuous slots while the latter had slots that were separated in sections.

The article also mentions the Panasonic Quintrix system which had a round dot matrix but used an extra focusing grid.

The Linytron, like other sets, had a self-supporting mask. The Trinitron mask consisted of wires under tension, supported by a heavy frame.

I have never seen anything special about the linytron CRT. Thy always looked the same as any other inline CRT.

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thats because they were a generic inline bought from toshiba,nec,hitachi,and even rca!

as for the best vintage crt its got to be the zenith 23vc3/vcm.yes the tinted sylvania was nice but even in the day most were weak at the 2 year mark.going to be rough to find a good one now.only hope would be vdc.

2-3 years and they were in the shop for replacement.i have one in my zenith chromacolor.it is a vdc rebuild and it is great!the sylvania hybrid crt from the d-16 chassis always seemed to hold up much better.we used many of those in the solid state sets for replacement.it was our 99 dollar special.used crt with a two year warranty.cant remember any coming back.love to find a d-16 slide control set.those are awesome and my dad bought one in 1972-73 to replace the philco roundie.the early 80s were the best times for us.plenty of crts available and plenty of sets needing them.

Now that you mention Silvertone, I wonder what the picture looks like on my NOS 1962-3 Silvertone 21FBP22?

I was blessed enough to find a good used Silvertone 21FBP22-RCA built it. I would guess that Sears would want a decent quality tube since they sold so many service plans.

Speaking of CRTs, what was with the GEs that had the blue face when off? I remember seeing ads for them but not many sales if I remember right. What was their point with it? What gave it that blue color?

mitsubishi had a "blue diamond crt" back in the late 80s,early 90s?i saw a few and they were very nice to watch.g e had a pretty sharp crt in the 70s.a little grainy but a nice look.most crts were pretty good except the low level rca sets from the late 60s and that horrible motorola 23 inch crt.some admiral 23v crts were dreadful too.the motorola was the worst of the lot in my opinion.i once spent days trying to make one look good in the shop.mr dixon then relieved me by saying,"you ve spent enough time on it.it will never look better than it does now.the crt is the worst ever made.i just wanted to see how long you would tinker before you gave up."then he explained business to me.labor costs,etc.i learned so much.but i still never give up!

Mostly a gimmick, done with blue glass (?) or a blue coating, don't know which. I also have ads for GE black and white tubes/sets that had an especially blue color (I think the phosphor rather than the glass), so they had a history of doing this.

I have a sales flyer for those GE sets, they called it Neovision. I think it was only used on their top of the line sets. I knew a couple people who had them but I never noticed anything special about the picture. Might have been made up until they bought RCA? The last one I saw was a few years back, owned by a friend of my wife. The crt was noticeably weak.

I think I've seen a few late GE and early Thomson era GE's with the "blue tube". Some of the Panasonic built GE branded consoles also had the "blue tube". Also, I had a 19" GE "PC" chassis stereo TV with the blue tube.

My opinion:
Telefunken A66-510X
Valvo/Philips A66-540X
18'' Trinitron 1977
Today I fixed an late-70's Indesit with a Sylvania delta, seems to look good but I have to make a correct convergence adjusting before judging it.

I think all their replacement CRT's were Sylvania rebuilts. They would milk the CRT for all it was worth before replacing it. I seen a lot of sets that were just off contract, that the CRT looked sick. That was true of both Sears and RCA.