What made vintage old tv dangerous to turn on

[MadMan]

The danger is part of the experience. The giant high voltage glass grenade in front of me as I type this is part of the fun.

And vacuum tubes have their own intrigue. Removing them from a TV would gut it of the very thing that makes it interesting in the first place. 20 little glass bulbs filled with nothing and glowing hot delicate pieces of metal somehow control and amplify an invisible force, how is that not cool?

So the thing might stink of ozone, use far too much electricity, make a high pitched whine that only young people and dogs can hear, and might implode and kill somebody some day. But it works. In spite of all that, it makes something magical happen.

~~~

But yeah, paper capacitors are garbage. Fortunately, that technology has advanced very far, and there's really no reason not to replace the wax paper bombs.