Zenith's demise.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Yamaha B-2

Actually, Zenith production moved to Mexico prior to the company being sold to LG. My '89 Zenith 27" is still used most every day as our bdrm unit. Only problem it has ever had is that the remote has gone bad. All else works just fine.

And, as you state, even the Japanese companies can no longer afford to make their own TV (and other gear) at home, except for the highest-end stuff. Yamaha no longer makes a CDP. All are rebadged from Philips or Samsung, etc. Oh, well, we get what we vote for in a democracy.

You are absolutely correct. I just looked at the back of my 1995 Zenith Sentry 2 color set, and found that it had been assembled in Mexico--same as my RCA CTC185. By the nineties, I think the only thing left of Zenith in Chicago were its business offices; they are still there today, although they have moved from Glenview, Illinois to Lincolnshire, both Chicago suburbs. The TV manufacturing plants are in Korea; the audio division moved there in the '80s. I once had a Zenith four-mode integrated stereo system which had been built in Korea to Zenith's specifications, so the audio/radio production arm of the company went offshore some 20+ years before the television plant left Chicago.

As to your Zenith 27" TV, I'm sure a universal remote will operate it just as well as did the original. (The only sets universal remotes will not operate are the very old ones that used ultrasonic signals from a mechanical or electronic hand unit, such as the first Zenith Space Command remotes up to about the 1980s; the universals are all infrared [IR] units, which will only work with modern TVs using IR remote receivers.) I've been using an All For One universal remote with my CTC185 RCA for some time, not necessarily because the original is defective or broken (in fact, it works great), but because the All For One remote will operate my entire video system, except my DVD player (a CyberHome unit that will not work with universal remotes ).