Zenith Goes Bye-Bye

[AndyMon]

This post showed up yesterday at AVSForum. I'm reposting it here FYI.

LG Electronics of Korea has decided to change the marketing of their TV products. From this point on, 'high-end' products, which include STB's, are now going to be sold under the LG nameplate.

The Zenith brand, wholly owned by LG, will still be used on less expensive products. Another example of this policy is in the plasma line, where the 60" will be sold as LG & the 42" & 50" will be sold as Zenith.

Here is the conversion table for upcoming STB's:

Zenith HD-SAT530 = LG LSS-3200A, DirecTV & DTV

Zenith HDV430 = LG LST-3100A, DTV & QAM

Zenith HD-PVR330 = LG LST-3410A, DTV & QAM PVR

Zenith HDX330 = LG LST-3510A, DTV & QAM PVR & and upconverted to 1080i DVD

[TNGTony]

Zenith has been a POS for quite some time. Even before they were sold off to L.G. (better known as Gold Star).

I've never seen a TV with as much overscan in my life! But people liked that because it made the picture look bigger. Never mind that there was a substantial amount of stuff that was cut off all 4 sides. :)

See ya
Tony

[AndyMon]

Maybe, Tony, but their STB's are generally acknowledged to be among, if not the, best. The Sony HD200 is also made by LG.

[firephoto]

Another reason to avoid sony's too. ;)
Of all the TV's I've had or been around, Zenith's and Sony's were always among the first to crap out. It amazes me how Sony can have an awesome design the let the component assembly be the crappiest job in the world sometimes. :( Just a decent soldering job would prevent a lot of their problems.

[music_beans]

It seems that Older Zenith TVs (pre 1990) are made a lot better than the ones made today.

[DishDude1]

Zenith used to make a good product and actually does now. They had a few bad model lines in the mid 90's, mainly attributed to a bad picture tube design that really cost them their reputation. I also have been really impressed with the quality and value of the products that have been coming out of Korea lately, LG, Samsung and if your looking at cars, Hyundai!

[SamC]

If I understand this correctly, and this is an over-simplification, a lot of well known US companies like Zenith, Philco, Crosley, etc in the radio/TV field went broke long ago. The brand names were picked up as an asset in the bankruptcy courts for little or nothing.

After setting fallow for a few years, the brands were applied to, mostly junk, Asian made products. Older folks, who often had loyalties to TV brands just like car brands, were the victims of this.

[RichW]

Many of the Radio/TV manufacturers - Admiral, Zenith, Muntz, and Motorola were based in Chicago. Their radio businesses were hurt as post-war Japan flooded the US market with the cheap three-tube table radios in the 50s. The TV business went south (or should I say East) as Japan matured in using printed circuit boards and square TV CRT manufacturing.

Zenith was one to defend their antiquated hand-soldering manufacturing by inferring that printed-circuit boards were inferior to hand-wired TVs. "Hand-crafted for dependability" was their slogan, yet their Chicago factory was made up mostly of cheap unskilled immigrant labor (mostly from Mexico) in order to compete with Japan. If I remember correctly, Zenith later tried to enter the PC market and merged with Heathkit.

[firephoto]

Zenith Data Systems ;)
I have a couple of their old laptops from 1986 I think. 8088 with 5mb hard drive and 720k floppy and "enough" ram :lol: Besides the crappy hard drives and the intermittent connection on the display ribbon cable they still worked last time I tried them.

[slojim]

My only experience with Zenith has been trying to fix or adjust TV's made by Zenith for friends and relatives.
Every one of them stated Hecho en Mexico(made in Mexico).
Jim

[HarryD]

Zenith was the 'staple' of TV's in the 60's and 70's. That's the only brand my parents would buy. They bought me a 27" color console when I got married.. (the cabinet was real wood - a very nice piece of furniture). After 13 years (and many repairs), it was sent to the thrift shop.

[James_F]

Heck, my Dad still has a Motorola in the basement. :eek2:

[raj2001]

It seems that Older Zenith TVs (pre 1990) are made a lot better than the ones made today.


All older TV's were made alot better (reliability/construction wise) pre 1990 than now. We had a Sharp 19" color TV that was going strong for 22 years before the tripler crapped out. Once or twice, at 15 and 17 years the HOT burnt out but that was easily fixed. We replaced the tripler and gave it to my aunt. I don't know what's the status of that set now :)

That TV saw lots of use, from movie nights/weekends with our VCR, the endless hours my dad and I spent on our Commodore 64, endless hours of Nintendo/Super NES/Playstation, along with prime time almost every night.

What's happened now is that alot of the "old reliable" manufacturers have been bought out and re-sold. Thefore an RCA or Zenith today isn't the same as an RCA or Zenith 15-20 years ago.

[raj2001]

Oh by the way, anyone remember that heathkit used to sell alot of Zenith stuff in kit form?

[MrAkai]

I had a killer Zenith/Heathkit tube amp when I was in high school (it had been my dad's in college) but it got too troublesome to find black-market russian tube dealers to keep working.....

Hey in a dorm it doubled as a hot-plate, how cool is that? :)

As for modern TVs, I've had good luck with Sharp for low-end (19-25") and I have a Mitsubishi 1993 (or so) 26" TV for my main CRT (when I'm not using the projector) and it's withstood tons of abuse and keeps on going.

Plus I enjoy the double-takes when I tell them i have a 26" TV (don't you mean 27"? nope... :)

-S

[Phil T]

I used to love to put together Heathkits - clock, thermometer, record player, door bell. The last thing I made was a uhf-vhf scanner, late 80's I think. I sure miss getting soder burns. :)

[Cyber Nun]

The pope has a Zenith TV... Its B&W, but that is how we see the world...

[Scott Greczkowski]

ok Hector :nono2:

[RichW]

I actually put together one of Heathkit's TV sets back in 1981 or so. It came with a nice console cabinet. I had to buy in in Washington State because Oregon law at teh time would allow Heath to sell anything in kit form that plugged into AC (because of lack of UL listing).