High Performance B&W TV

[maxhifi]

This one is for the guys who are either old timers, or have a fair sized collection.

What is the highest performance B&W TV from the mid to late 50s?

By high performance I mean all features which contribute to picture quality. Sharpness, contrast ratio, geometry, etc. Sensistivity is less of an issue these days with the death of OTA broadcast.

As someone whose main exposure to tvs of this era comes from reading old magazines like Radio & TV News, my guess would be one of the souped up RCA 630 clones from the mid 50s, with a 21" picture tube, would be the thing to look for.

[wa2ise]

An issue to contend with in the later 50's is that the B&W TV designers would limit the video bandwidth to suppress the NTSC color chroma subcarrier. That subcarrier ranging from about 2MHz and up. The chroma subcarrier would appear, on high resolution early B&W sets, as a crawling fine checkerboard pattern in highly saturated color areas of the picture.

Usually, they used the response of the IF strip to do the above chroma subcarrier supression.

One high performance feature that most every TV set manufacturer left out was DC restoration. Without DC restoration, a night scene (picture being mostly dark) the blacks go gray after the TV show switches from a bright sunny day (lots of white in the picture). Most color TVs did have this feature, as gray dark colored areas look really awful, washed out looking. For some reason this doesn't look quite as awful in B&W.

[Eric H]

Nothing specific her but probably something from Zenith.

[Penthode]

Pre-53 sets with wide bandwidth and DC restoration are the things that make the sets high class.

The epitome of best quality RCA B&W sets was 1951-52, just before color. Four IF stages with 4MHz bandwidth and DC coupled video amplifiers really counts for getting a good picture.

I also think printed circuits with tubes is a bad thing. That is why Zenith touted "hand wired quality" long after almost all other set makers went to printed circuits.

This reminds me of an incident a few years back when I was looking or a Zenith Silver Sensor antenna. She was about 20 years old and she didn't know what Zenith was. I said "you know.. the quality goes in before the name goes on" and she thought I was crazy.

[skillybob]

Like maxhifi , this has been a question that has been on my mind . I am relatively new to this hobby/addiction and am looking for my next project. Since I am the world's slowest technician , it will be awhile , so I have time to scout around for the next victim. My next set should be a stand alone television without radio or phonograph. At the present time , I have no interest in color , so I am looking for a set that is 'as good as it gets' for b/w. I'm not looking for anything that is rare or hard to find, just a solid performer. Anybody got a specific make and chassis to look out for? As a side note, there is a user on this forum (John Marinello) that has an avatar of a set that I just can't get over. I don't know anything about the chassis or performance of 'Byron' but for looks I think that's 'about as good as it gets'.

[kx250rider]

I'd have to say the DuMont 1-piece chassis from 1947-50 with the Mallory Inputuner. Those were used in DuMont, Stromberg-Carlson, and Crosley TVs. Built as close to mil-spec as you can get!

Charles

[Tubejunke]

I was just going to jump in and recommend my 58 24" Space Command orphan that eventually someone is going to frag me for mentioning, but then I saw the DuMont recommendation. For what must have been the ultimate in overkill, I would definitely speak highly of that era of Dumont sets. However, I tend to believe that less bells and whistles simply leaves less to go wrong, not just in electronics, but in most things; especially cars. The more basic the car, the less problems arise. One must understand that I am of the mind that sees the Volkswagen Beetle as an ingenious engineering feat. Not necessarily the actual car, but the idea of one style that changed little, so common mechanics eventually became experts and parts were cheap and backward compatible. It would seem that is what we need now, but I have always felt that the cars were removed from our economy due (besides safety issues) to lasting too long and offering far less opportunity to gouge owners at the dealership. It seems that products that last as long as the payment book and warranty, then are deemed obsolete, are the way these days. Sorry, I sort of went off topic.......

[maxhifi]

This is interesting in that there's not clear consensus, but plenty to look for. The main reason I said 1955+ was so the set would have an aluminized picture tube, but i haven't seen many later sets with dc restoration, and intercarrier sound is somewhat of a drawback too in that white text makes the annoying buzz sound. I think 17 inches is about a perfect size for a TV screen, as far as I am concerned.

[Tubejunke]

With the desire for an aluminized crt, are you trying to avoid dealing with an ion trap magnet? I have never been quite clear on the ins and outs of aluminized tubes. The has been discussion here before on the subject that led me to believe that if a tube was aluminized that it would not require an ion trap. However, my Sylvania tube guide lists aluminized tubes WITH an ion trap if I am not mistaken.

[maxhifi]

well, it's not the ion trap
In addition to avoiding the ion trap, the aluminum layer prevents light from the phosphor from lighting up the inside of the tube... Result being improved contrast when scene has both light and dark elements due to absense of reflected light washing out the dark parts of picture

[kramden66]

The RCA 21" metal sets from around 56-58 had nice pictures , usually balck cabinet with channel knob , volume/contrast on the side , below them a little door that had brightness , vertical and horz , but like other i'd say i agree about the dumont statements but would add that the RCA 10" sets like 8-t-241 , 9-t-246 Produce great images like the dumonts ... i don't know what the Zenith 21" sets were like in the late 50's but the 23" and 19" zeniths of the 60-66 era had great images , so maybe RCA , i don't recall if the 14" and 17" zeniths of that period had great images , perhaps someone knows what other makes had like sylvania , emerson , etc

Mike

[dieseljeep]

When you saw a 21" set with two 5U4's, it generally was a higher performance model. A lot of mid 50's RCA's were like that. The only thing that was a problem was that lousy 21AP4 CRT. I think the 1954 model year, they went to glass CRT's.

[peverett]

I collect the Hoffman Easy Vision TVs and the Mark V chassis has 4 IFs and a true limiter in the sound stage(this removes almost all of the buzz). The rest of the TV design is of high quality also. However, I do not believe that it has DC restoration. Of course, you have to live with living Black and Green, not living Black and White due to the green tinted safety glass Hoffman used at that time.

As to cars, my wifes Ford Escort has gone almost 200,000 miles with no engine/transmission trouble. My grandfathers 1953 Ford went 170,000 miles (at 45 MPH-he was a slow driver), then broke an engine ring. Due to this kind of stuff, I think cars are as good as they ever were, if not better. They are better in fuel economy(fuel injection), safety, etc. If they are worse, it is in the plastic trim(hubcaps and such) that are used now. From my experience, reliablity is at least as good, if not better than older cars.

[marty59]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

When you saw a 21" set with two 5U4's, it generally was a higher performance model. A lot of mid 50's RCA's were like that. The only thing that was a problem was that lousy 21AP4 CRT. I think the 1954 model year, they went to glass CRT's.

Or P-P output tubes for the audio! Some of the higher end late 50's Zeniths had the claim as being "fringe" reception sets as well as some models with two rectifiers.

[zenith2134]

I was thinking DuMont--but that's more for the cabinetry than the circuitry in a lot of cases (the radio's and phono's in them were NOT so great) and the I think only the top of the line DuMonts had DC resto.

Someone mentioned Stromberg Carlson-I agree they are built like milspec gear. Once had a 6BQ5 integrated stereo amp by them which was heavy and sounded great.