Zenith 31" + CRTs
 

From what I understand Zenith never made a CRT larger than 27". Who provided their CRTs for larger sets? Was it one manufacturer or multiple?

There is a '99ish 32" I am interested in. These bigger CRTs were just so heavy!!

http://i66.tinypic.com/18hyrl.jpg

A friend had a 31" digital system 3 from the late '80's and it had a Zenith-branded CRT; but, I don't know if Zenith actually made it. By the mid '90's, it started getting weak, I rejuvenated it, and it ran for another year or two before falling off again. He eventually gave me the set and I patched it up good enough to give to the salvation army. IIRC, he paid about $1600 for that set.

A bought a new Zenith set in 1994 for $999.00. It was a higher end model with a lot of jacks for various inputs.
It developed a loose connection on one of the power handling resistors, when it was around five years old. I swung it around on the shelf and pulled the back and pulled on board assembly and found the bad solder joint.
When I had it apart, I noticed that the CRT was Made in Japan. I didn't think that Japan made CRT's that large. I traded the set for some old radios, when it was about 10 YO. The CRT still looked really good!
Someone mentioned that it might have been Toshiba sourced. :thmbsp:

During the later years, Zenith should have sourced all of their CRT's from someone else (since they suddenly had such a hard time with making a reliable tube). By '99, even the 25" and 27" tubes were sourced from either Thomson/RCA or LG/Philips; but, by that time, it was basically too late for Zenith.