CRT Enjoyer Thread - CRTs >>>>> Everything else.

[AmpleApricots]

Don't really miss them. I think that people that say LCDs are so much worse just never owned a decent, expensive LCD panel. Some $80 VA "gamer" monitor with a PPI of 92 and horrendous backlight bleeding issues of course is going to be terrible.

If you need something for classic systems, look into "portable monitors". The expensive ones usually have panels from high end notebooks. Find one with VRR/freesync (so scrolling of PAL content will be smooth) a PPI of > 200 (the more the better, so scaling will not lead to blurriness) and, if you sit close to it, a small size ~ 13-16" (so individual pixels are not as big as your fist) and either 3:2 or 16:10. Such a monitor is the best my Amiga's output has ever looked.

 

[Al from Dadeville]

I have a small CRT for playing the old GTA games but staring at the screen gives me headaches. I have really shitty eyes though

 

[Rololowlo]

Cheap retroprojectors have their own issues but if you've seen the comparisons between pure pixels and intended visuals, they (accidentally) do a good approximation of the CRT fuzz.

As much as I like CRTs, and they're more likely than OLEDs to get a "wow" out of someone used to bad monitors, it's hard to justify that kind of logistics anymore. "Oh no, Sonic's teeth look off" bitch I'm playing 40-yo games, how much of a graphics whore do you think I am.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

Where the fuck do I find a CRT these days? I tried looking at pawn shops but they didn't have anything.

whatever your local online marketplace is, or an electronics recycler. Pawn shops and the like don't usually accept CRTs these days due to them not being worth anything and taking up a lot of space.

CRT is the new vinyl. It was cool until a few years ago

What are you, a hipster hipster? Also, it's not hard to get a non-meme model for extremely cheap/free. You just sound lazy.

 

[WTBOnlineFather]

What are you, a hipster hipster? Also, it's not hard to get a non-meme model for extremely cheap/free. You just sound lazy.

Buddy I don't know under what rock you've been hiding for the last 5 years but trying to find a functional and decent quality CRT for a reasonable price really isn't easy right now, compared to 10-15 years ago when everyone was pretty much giving that shit away. If you're handy with electronics repairs you could probably get just about anything for pennies and fix it up but I'm not.

 

[isalaide]

I came here to enjoy some critical race theory and all there is is a bunch of shite old tellies that not even a junkie would steal

 

[FamicomGorby]

I do have a fancy 80's Panasonic CRT I picked up at an estate sale a couple years ago that I reacpped. Pretty much just use it exclusively with my N64. It's more of a nostalgia thing for me, but there is something different about playing something on a CRT in a dark room compared to an LCD, at least to me. I don't think they're better than LCD's, obviously, but they are different and I don't think there's anything wrong with having a preference for certain applications.

Also work on arcade games sometimes and for those it's CRT monitors or nothin. What's the point of having a giant arcade cabinet if you're not gonna play on the original monitor? That goes double for something like my Tempest, which has one of the most infamously temperamental monitors ever made, where the entire effect of a color vector monitor is lost if you play it on an LCD.

Actually for those arcade collectors will sometimes do tube swaps where they can take a tube from a worthless CRT TV and pop it into an arcade monitor's chassis. Basically as long as the tube meets certain specs it can work. Still easy to do since the only CRT's I've noticed that have really gone up in value are Sony Trinitrons, whose tubes can't be swapped into anything else since they work differently than pretty much every other CRT.

 

[Rock hard as a Flintstone]

Buddy I don't know under what rock you've been hiding for the last 5 years but trying to find a functional and decent quality CRT for a reasonable price really isn't easy right now, compared to 10-15 years ago when everyone was pretty much giving that shit away. If you're handy with electronics repairs you could probably get just about anything for pennies and fix it up but I'm not.

In my admittedly pretty limited experience of working on them they're always going to be an autistic labor of love from now on, the newest of them are approaching 20 years old and if problems haven't happened yet, they will. If your personal time is cheap and you want one with minimal outlay the only advice I have is to keep an eye on the waste pipeline in your area. The last set I found this year (with scart!) was found on the side of the road, it needed minimal work like I mentioned in another thread but they're still out there, normal people don't give a shit about them anymore and rightly so.

 

[Don Yagon]

 

[Kalsarikännit]

Buddy I don't know under what rock you've been hiding for the last 5 years

I'm asking you that. They're still not hard to find. I see cheap listings every day. Especially when the larger CRTS come up that aren't able to be moved by one person (and aren't a meme model line like WEGA)

 

[WTBOnlineFather]

I'm asking you that. They're still not hard to find. I see cheap listings every day. Especially when the larger CRTS come up that aren't able to be moved by one person (and aren't a meme model line like WEGA)

Maybe it's just worse in eastern yuroland where I live. CRT TVs are still plentiful here of course, CRT computer monitors not so much.

 

[Sperg Coalition]

Where the fuck do I find a CRT these days? I tried looking at pawn shops but they didn't have anything.

Dumpsters and near trash cans. Embrace your inner gypsy and you can get a CRT TV for free.

 

[Rock hard as a Flintstone]

Maybe it's just worse in eastern yuroland where I live. CRT TVs are still plentiful here of course, CRT computer monitors not so much.

In my experience those aren't as easy to find now. I'd love a really nice late model SVGA monitor to go alongside my NEC Multisync that I'll never part with (because I don't hoard old consoles, only computers) but I keep finding neglected television sets nobody wants and I can't say no.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

It really does depend on what CRT you want. Black plastic TV sets with basic inputs, and those tiny DVD or VHS combo unit TVs are extremely common still and will do great for retro console gaming.

VGA monitors are expensive online but still pretty easy to find cheap in person.

If you want a PVM or other professional equipment, or meme monitors like the FW-900 or this specific Panasonic set for some reason:


Be prepared to pay up.

In my admittedly pretty limited experience of working on them they're always going to be an autistic labor of love from now on, the newest of them are approaching 20 years old and if problems haven't happened yet, they will.

Absolutely. Old shit needs work. Old cars, old TVs, old people. That said, people are still restoring shit from the first days of television to working order, and while it's not retard-proof it's really not that hard to do yourself, as long as you do a little research. And learn about what the hell a capacitor is.

 

[PS2 Nishiki]

Lately I've been wanting to find a broken CRT monitor and fix it back together. I used to see a ton of them at the garbage dump in my area but that was when flatscreens were just becoming the normal thing.

 

[Harmless Harm]

I knew someone who used to collect and repair them; they told me that they're a huge fire hazard. I don't know how true that is, as I haven't owned one in years.

 

[Dr. Eldon Tyrell]

You forgot:
spices up every image with non-euclidean distortion.

still the most based screen tech there ever was.

 

[Dr. Eldon Tyrell]

I knew someone who used to collect and repair them; they told me that they're a huge fire hazard. I don't know how true that is, as I haven't owned one in years.

>mostly made of glas, lead and steel.
dunno, sounds stupid.

 

[FamicomGorby]

I knew someone who used to collect and repair them; they told me that they're a huge fire hazard. I don't know how true that is, as I haven't owned one in years.

Definitely not a fire hazard just sitting around. Really the only danger, in a set that hasn't been fucked with, would be the implosion risk if something big and heavy smashed through the front. Usually though when a tube breaks it's from being "necked", where the skinny and much more fragile neck at the back of the tube cracks and lets air in.

Though there were some old arcade monitor designs that were a bit more of a fire hazard, mainly cause in the arcade world it wasn't uncommon to drive components at or past their ratings to save some cash. That kinda stuff is pretty easy to fix though by just swapping in higher rated components.

 

[Anti Alien Alarm]

CRTs were the mainstay back when media was good, so I don't see much of a reason to get a modern display just for consooming. 480i just doesn't hold up well with modern resolutions. Although with scaling and a proper really good high-end display like what @AmpleApricots suggested, you can create a better experience. But that's not the way!!!