Brad> Of course I checked all capacitors, there was no need to replace any as they all had perfect readings. I have seen bad capacitors before on older tv's but never on these silver case Trinitrons. When there's a problem you either get a bad reading or you can visually see it (talking about experience with older tv's). The kind of issues I've seen were more apparent and clearly not a setting issue, generally weird behaviors or picture fluctuations (stuff like brightness fluctuating or a geometrical fold that is normally impossible to achieve manually) that's how I knew there was a problem. I too have been through countless models and types on the silver case Trinitrons. I have seen all sorts of geometrical, convergence and focus issues on the tubes that had more wear but these were tube related or setting related (could be fixed up somewhat post calibration). Ironically i have had a capacitor problem on a BVM though, and those were using incredibly modern parts for the time, but to be fair they were probably running 24/7 in some tough environment so maybe it's not too surprising.
I understand where that notion (newer tv's weren't made as well as older ones) may come from but it's just not accurate. I have never thought that components on crt's were ever bad to be honest. I have seen many 80's tv's still running fine, but I have also never seen any issues with silver chassis Sony tv either (not saying your tv's don't have issues perhaps, just that it's not going to help you any better to go with older tubes imo). What happens now a days is many gamers swarm back to crt's with experience and expectations they have developed with modern digital technologies and then find imperfections they never noticed (and it doesn't help in our minds when we think that we're dealing with decades old used tv's), but this is how these analog tv's worked, they were never perfect to begin with, just that we never noticed before and we never questioned or took issue with basic imperfections they had because it was all we had and all we knew.
I'm surprised about your 27 inch ones but generally there's documentation online to show these tv's launched with sub par brightness setting, if you go on online reviews for these tubes it was documented even back in 2003~2004 by users who had that as their main complaint for these tv's. For the two 27 inch you have maybe they were already refurbished or calibrated to adjust and compensate. Once adjusted you should be able to achieve ideal brightness and no longer have any black crush.
EDIT Here's one example (check the review date):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-revi ... B000066HOCI detest touching the G2, it's the worst setting to work with in my experience, I have never made the picture on a Trinitron better adjusting the G2, I always made it worse and had to find the sweet spot again, generally you end up with retrace lines from a bad adjustment and I never improved blacks with it so I think it's one of those things I prefer leaving alone unless I feel there's an issue.
Brightness and contrast on crt's were reversed actually compared to what most manufactures uses these terms for now a days, but I see your point. You can read more about it here if you are interested:
https://poynton.ca/notes/brightness_and ... index.htmlThe brightness on Trinitron tubes for example do not increase overall light output, picture does this on Sony tv's. On a modern tv often times brightness does what picture did on those crt's.
Since I can't see your tubes in person I can't say for sure you don't have a technical problem, but I wouldn't necessarily blame the capacitors is all. Flyback transformer failure is possible. I haven't had any problems myself but that is something I have heard of happening before. If you ae not able to get contrast to reach proper levels then maybe there is a problem. The only games I found black crush on were PS2 titles and Gamecube (most noticeably on horror titles which are darker), I found increasing the brightness 3 to 5 points up solved it, but it needed to be decreased for all other systems or the picture was not as even. I think sometimes it depends on the source too so there's no perfect setting for all sources imo.
Not sure what happened with the tube you had where the image was too bright. I had that on a Toshiba once were the black crush was so deadly I had to increase the global brightness or picture to a really high setting to see things properly and then it looked dull. That tv felt too far gone (had other issues) so I didn't bother working on it further.
All this to say, crt's have different personalities in a way. They will almost all have quirks that will need addressing, and in the end you only get the picture as close as possible to perfect. I wouldn't use the kind of equipment you are using such as colorimeter or you are bound to never be happy with a consumer tv in my opinion. Just settle on the tv that gives you the nicest picture, and it might be a tv different from others as this is a subjective matter ultimately. In the end it's all about compromises and personal preferences.
