Discussion: does the number of IF tubes REALLY matter?

[miniman82]

Very interesting stuff, Wayne. So you're saying that because IF stages had become more or less standardized by the 70's, there was really no point to even trying IQ demodulation? I suppose the economics of that style of demod led quickly to it's own destruction, especially if the IF stages had been changed for some other reason and could now no longer support it. Sort of a double whammy, huh? Now that I have had a chance to see both wideband and narrowband color sets, I can honestly say that my eye is not sensitive enough to tell the difference. To me, the 21-CT-55 looks just as good as my cheapo Philco 17MT80 if you ignore the Philco's 3.58MHz dot crawl.

I strongly suspect that as soon as I am able to get component input working on the 17MT80, it will rival the perfomance of many higher end units.