Might pick up barely used 1994 27" Trinitron

[Brad251]

The person told me that the model is KU-27T830, but it might be KV-27T830. I can't find any info on it but they said it was manufactured in December of '94 and that it was never used because it was in a guest room. If this truly was never used or even if it was barely used, how good of a find is this? It probably has just s-video. This TV is 2 hours from me.

Another TV that has less than 100 hours on it is a 27" Trinitron FS120 that was made in 2005. This one happens to be 4 hours from me but I never see the FS120 models near me that have that low of hours on them. I have owned a 27" FS120 and the picture was fantastic (OG Xbox and Wii over component blew me away) but I had an issue with it being to bright and previously I had a 24" FS100 that could not show any shadow detail.

Which one would you go for if you didn't care about the older one probably only having s-video?

[Steamflogger Boss]

Well, I'd probably go for both if they were free. In a strict pick only one situation I'd go for the one with basically no use. It's kind of unreal to find a CRT with next to no hours on it now. It's going to look as good as it can based on that.

[FinalBaton]

I'm guessing the first set is a KV-27TS30. Here's the manual : https://www.manualslib.com/manual/56950 ... 0ts30.html

It's a S-video set, and provided it's in good shape and the tube isn't worn out(it should be fine since hasn't been used), it should have a great picture. It has the same tube as my prosumer set (KV-25XBR), which is a Microblack Trinitron tubes, and it has all the same (well-implemented)picture-enhancement circuitry as my set as well. Mine doesn't have S-video, so I can't tell you how the S-video decoding fares, but if it's good then it ashould be a stellar consumer set for composite and S-video (I like the look of composite video on mine). Cylindrical screen on that one. Basically it's like my set, but with S-video and without RGB and ajustable colour temperature

I actually was looking at that set before stumbling on my KV-25XBR, and probably would have bought one(or at least checked one out, there are a couple available near me). been meaning to check one out in person for a while. I'd definitely check it out if I were you and also provided you're motivated for the road trip, and are ok with S-video as your best connection


Here is a pic someone took of a SNES via S-video running on the 20" variant of the set :
https://i.imgur.com/3nrQbi0.jpg




The FS-120 seems solid, I've seen plenty of pics of people using it has an arcade cab monitor and it seems very decent. good enough colours. has component so that's nice. it's a flatscreen and probably has more TVL and less bloon so it's gonna look different from the first set. nothing wrong with it I think. I've never seen one in person, only in pics and videos though

[Brad251]

Do you think the colors would be better on the older Trinitron from '94 or the newer Trinitron from '95?

[FinalBaton]

That's though to say. I think I'd like the colours(and the general look of the image) better on the older Trinitron at equal connection, but the thing is, the FS120 has a better connection available(component) which pumps in better fidelity in the tv. I don't know, I'd have to look at 'em both.

[maxtherabbit]

if you are *absolutely certain* that they are both super low hours - AND you would be willing/able to RGB mod the older one - I'd go for the curved tube since it's likely to have better geometry

all that being said, I'd have a lot more confidence generally in a set from 2005 than one 10 years older - and certainly much more likely to truly be "low hours"

[Brad251]

if you are *absolutely certain* that they are both super low hours - AND you would be willing/able to RGB mod the older one - I'd go for the curved tube since it's likely to have better geometry

all that being said, I'd have a lot more confidence generally in a set from 2005 than one 10 years older - and certainly much more likely to truly be "low hours"

I'm confident that the older one has low hours it as the owner as is selling a 32" Trinitron from the same year and they were both put in guest rooms. I have no desire to RGB mod the older Trinitron because that is far more work than I have the desire to do. I'm fin with s-video on that set.

If the newer one has geometry issues, I would be willing to fix them, even if I had to open up the set and manually do it. Granted, that takes work but I think it would be less work than trying to RGB mod the older Trinitron.

[Taiyaki]

I had a tv close to the first model mentioned although now I couldn't remember the exact model. It's one of those black case horizontally curved Trinitrons. The ones I've seen are perfectly nice tubes although they are somewhat surpassed by the later FD Trinitron tubes imo in terms of potential brightness levels, colors and sharpness.

The F120 is not a high TVL set. It along with the FS100 are actually pretty much your run of the mill standard def representative of the FD Trinitron series (and yes they do have bloom, quite a lot of it in fact):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FD_Trinitron/WEGA

That being said personally I love those tubes, with low hours it should be awesome. It's going to have poor corner geometry though because it comes that way out of the box, but at least you can be sure brightness/focus/sharpness will be very good thanks to the low use. The main thing you'd be missing from the FV equivalent sets is the somewhat better color reproduction, but even then I find that even FV sets are still not able to match studio level colors of the likes you'd find on high end HD XBR sets or pro monitors. Then again that's part of the charm of returning to SD crt's imo. You will be well served with that tv I think.

[Bratwurst]

Get both. CRTs are only going to get harder to find as time persists.

If you must pick one over the other, I feel the older set has certain advantages:

The 1994 set is going to be lighter and easier to handle than the F120. S-Video is pretty much just as (almost) good as RGB or component for a consumer grade tube. It can most likely be modded for RGB input over the OSD lines if you want.

The rub is if the older set truly saw little to no use in a guest room, it didn't do those electrolytic caps many favors.

[FinalBaton]

AND you would be willing/able to RGB mod the older one

sadly that older model can't be RGB-modded : ( I've seen it mentionned in the CRT RGB mod thread and it was a no- no.

if it was, I would have probably picked one up and try to RGB-mod it



Also, lots of good points made by everyone so far, great discussion

[Taiyaki]

FinalBaton is RGB that worth it? Back when I tried RGB on European crt's (via scart) I found it provided no added sharpness over component (even when pixel peeping), but it did give me a duller image in terms of colors. I understand the principle of bypassing the tv settings for accuracy but the image just wasn't as pleasant as the same setup would be on pro monitors. For this reason I favor Component and then S-video over RGB on consumer crt's but that's just me.

I agree with Bratwurst that it's worth picking up both if you can. Nothing like doing the comparison yourself. The only thing to keep in mind is that you're comparing two tv's of the same family but with over 10 years apart, that's a lot of R&D holding them apart imo. However if you have a certain nostalgia for 90's horizontally curved Trinitrons you might prefer the image on the older set.

[maxtherabbit]

FinalBaton is RGB that worth it? Back when I tried RGB on European crt's (via scart) I found it provided no added sharpness over component (even when pixel peeping), but it did give me a duller image in terms of colors. I understand the principle of bypassing the tv settings for accuracy but the image just wasn't as pleasant as the same setup would be on pro monitors. For this reason I favor Component and then S-video over RGB on consumer crt's but that's just me.

I agree with Bratwurst that it's worth picking up both if you can. Nothing like doing the comparison yourself. The only thing to keep in mind is that you're comparing two tv's of the same family but with over 10 years apart, that's a lot of R&D holding them apart imo. However if you have a certain nostalgia for 90's horizontally curved Trinitrons you might prefer the image on the older set.

I agree RGB doesn't offer anything over component in a quality chassis, but comparing it to s-video is crazy talk. RGB and YPbPr blow s-video out of the water on any half decent set, consumer or not.

[Taiyaki]

I didn't mean to mean to say that S-Video is superior to RGB. Of course going up from S-video to RGB provides a noticeable increase in sharpness (just like moving to Component). I just favor S-video because of the colors on RGB looking dry to me. To be fair to S-Video I find on really good tv's the S-video connection can also be quite spectacular, and on such tv's moving up to Component or RGB is certainly not the leap in quality found when going from RF to Composite or Composite to S-video imo, but it will still be an improvement nevertheless.

[Classicgamer]

Not all TV's are created equal. There is a tremendous variation in image quality regardless of the connection used.

When I lived in Europe, my dad (who was cheap) bought these awful Eastern European TVs. One had an RGB scart port but it was set for 2.5v instead of the 0.7v consumer rgb standard, so... my Jap Super Famicom came out dull.

On the other hand, every rgb Sony Trinitron I ever owned or saw had an awesome RGB image that was noticeably sharper than SVideo. Seeing no change in sharpness most likely means it wasn't an RGB image. You can display composite and SVideo through scart too. A lot of people were confused by this. The UK SNES came with a scart plug that was not wired for RGB, for example.

I can't see a huge difference between rgb and component on a consumer TV. Rgb looks better on my pro monitors though. There is no doubt that RGB is the king of SD video.

If color fidelity is the goal, anything that avoids the NTSC color system is better. I.e. Component or RGB.

If you can't RGB mod, and you care about the image quality, get a newer Sony with Component video. Or.... bettter yet, find a decent CRT arcade monitor.

[FinalBaton]

FinalBaton is RGB that worth it? Back when I tried RGB on European crt's (via scart) I found it provided no added sharpness over component (even when pixel peeping), but it did give me a duller image in terms of colors. I understand the principle of bypassing the tv settings for accuracy but the image just wasn't as pleasant as the same setup would be on pro monitors. For this reason I favor Component and then S-video over RGB on consumer crt's but that's just me.

I agree with Bratwurst that it's worth picking up both if you can. Nothing like doing the comparison yourself. The only thing to keep in mind is that you're comparing two tv's of the same family but with over 10 years apart, that's a lot of R&D holding them apart imo. However if you have a certain nostalgia for 90's horizontally curved Trinitrons you might prefer the image on the older set.

I'm actually with maxtherabbit on this : RGB/well-implemented component is a big step up over S-video. I have never understood when some people say that RGB is barely any better than S-video, this leaves me puzzled, to say the least. I think it's safe to say those people have never compared the 2 connections on the same(decent) set...

I personally don't get the dull thing you are referencing, this has not been my experience. With RGB, colours that are programmed to be saturated, are SUPER saturated and shiny, and they coexist with desaturated ones and in-between ones on the same frame, all of them being RICH. And yet balanced, like a fine wine. The farthest thing from dull. After playing in component/RGB, I can hardly look at S-video TBH. The colours are a big step down. It's a great connexion and a good stepup over composite, and if I only had access to that I'd be cool with it, but when I discovered component/RGB then I only wanted that from then on. There was no turning back

I don't think I'll ever go with a S-video-only set as my main set. It's gotta be RGB or a good component implementation






Having said that, if someone wants to use a lower connection to relive their childhood, then there's nothing wrong with that. Or wants to stick to S-video for low cost/simplicity's sake (for example I "hooked up" (pun intended) my friend with s-video cables since he doesn't want to spend a dime on his hookups. and since he's only seen rf and composite previously, then he's happy with S-video). But RGB is objectively quite nicer looking. and I'm a geek and want the best that's available. and it's not like RGB/component costs a fortune or is super hard to pull off either. almost all consoles output it and the price is reasonable. For me it's a no-brainer, I'm gonna treat myself to that gorgeous RGB/component picture But I'm just speaking for me, those are my personal taste. Some people do not seek the best and are perfectly fine with S-video, which is a solid connexion

[FinalBaton]

Good post Classicgamer!

[Taiyaki]

FinalBaton, as I stated in my last message I agree on that. There's no question RGB is the king of SD. I just personally prefer component and s-video due to the colors coming through as more colorful, and less restrained to my eyes (I'm also very ocd on picture quality and I couldn't adjust as the color change was too strong for my liking).

Maybe I haven't experienced RGB on a good enough consumer set and you have and therefor have seem a better RGB picture than I have, but for example when I tried a SNES on a European Panasonic (oh yes and have to be careful as Classicgamer said, some scarts have less pins and are actually composite connections through scart instead of RGB, I had one of those on a Pal PS1) in RGB I was getting a really sharp picture on the SNES but with subdued colors, with S-video was less sharp but at least retained punchy colors, and definitely looked more like a crt picture to me. What puzzles me is that on a BVM back when I used a setup with gscartw and all consoles in RGB all of them were glorious and definitely not subdued, it was a flat out improvement all round.

As Classicgamer said connections likely vary depending on the tv, but even on a modded FD Sony (not mine) the picture was similarly subdued as well. Looks great but we both thought it was just a bit more sober looking than we'd expect.

As for Component vs RGB there is definitely no difference in sharpness on consumer grade tubes, I could not tell the difference even up close.

[Brad251]

I had a tv close to the first model mentioned although now I couldn't remember the exact model. It's one of those black case horizontally curved Trinitrons. The ones I've seen are perfectly nice tubes although they are somewhat surpassed by the later FD Trinitron tubes imo in terms of potential brightness levels, colors and sharpness.

The F120 is not a high TVL set. It along with the FS100 are actually pretty much your run of the mill standard def representative of the FD Trinitron series (and yes they do have bloom, quite a lot of it in fact):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FD_Trinitron/WEGA

That being said personally I love those tubes, with low hours it should be awesome. It's going to have poor corner geometry though because it comes that way out of the box, but at least you can be sure brightness/focus/sharpness will be very good thanks to the low use. The main thing you'd be missing from the FV equivalent sets is the somewhat better color reproduction, but even then I find that even FV sets are still not able to match studio level colors of the likes you'd find on high end HD XBR sets or pro monitors. Then again that's part of the charm of returning to SD crt's imo. You will be well served with that tv I think.

I have owned the 27" FS120 set before and I liked it a lot. I had to get rid of it because the picture was too bright and hurt my eyes; even after turning down brightness and contrast. As long as the brightness on the FS120 I'm thinking about picking up isn't too intense, I will pick it up. One thing I will say about the 27" FS120 is that older consoles with component output like the OG Xbox and Wii looking stunning on the FS120 over component. This is for 2D games and especially for 3D games. One of the weaknesses of the FV300/310 sets is that they don't do a good job of displaying 3D video games. On the FV300 and FV310, I have tested N64 over composite, Xbox over component and Wii over component and with every system on these sets with 3D games, jaggies are more visible and when you are doing something like walking or driving past a 3D object, you can see diagonal lines moving up nearby 3D objects and it strains my eyes. I think it has something to do with how the FV300 and 310 sets are processing 3D images. On the FS100 and FS120 sets, 3D games look perfectly smooth with no jaggies and colors look amazing. I will say that 2D games do look better on the FV300 and FV310 because colors are more vibrant on those sets and the image is sharper. However, I still like the softer image of the FS100 and FS120 because it looks closer to how the CRTs I grew up playing on looked. Standard definition video also looks awesome on the FS100 and FS120. On the FV300 and FV310, with any 480i content, there is noticeable flicker and it strains my eyes to the point where it makes me borderline nauseous. On the FS100 and FS120 sets, I haven't noticed this problem.

[FinalBaton]

FinalBaton, as I stated in my last message I agree on that. There's no question RGB is the king of SD. I just personally prefer component and s-video due to the colors coming through as more colorful, and less restrained to my eyes (I'm also very ocd on picture quality and I couldn't adjust as the color change was too strong for my liking).

Maybe I haven't experienced RGB on a good enough consumer set and you have and therefor have seem a better RGB picture than I have, but for example when I tried a SNES on a European Panasonic (oh yes and have to be careful as Classicgamer said, some scarts have less pins and are actually composite connections through scart instead of RGB, I had one of those on a Pal PS1) in RGB I was getting a really sharp picture on the SNES but with subdued colors, with S-video was less sharp but at least retained punchy colors, and definitely looked more like a crt picture to me. What puzzles me is that on a BVM back when I used a setup with gscartw and all consoles in RGB all of them were glorious and definitely not subdued, it was a flat out improvement all round.

As Classicgamer said connections likely vary depending on the tv, but even on a modded FD Sony (not mine) the picture was similarly subdued as well. Looks great but we both thought it was just a bit more sober looking than we'd expect.

As for Component vs RGB there is definitely no difference in sharpness on consumer grade tubes, I could not tell the difference even up close.

That RGB consumer set you saw definitely was broken in some way, or just had poor picture. I have my SNES fired up on my consumer crt at the moment with TMNT (a very colourful game). I wish you could be here to see what I see. The game literally cannot look more colourful than this. It is rich, neon like colours that just jump at you and attack your eyeballs with how vivid they are

I guess on sets that have sub-par picture, you can crank up the colour and get an overblown picture over S-video and component that's gonna be more saturated, but ultimately it's gonna be just that : overblown. RGB tells you the true story regarding the sets quality. If it's RGB picture is not good, then the set is not good. cranking up the colour over the other connexions won't change that

Ultimately the goal is to find a good set

(here's a pic of mine, taken with my shitty cellphone. Ain't no dull/subdued colours here)

[Taiyaki]

That's exactly how it looked on my BVM monitor via RGB and color wise the way it looks on my Sony sets via S-video. I can get that quality via RGB through a YUV encoder too but I generally stick to S-video because the improvement is fairly minimal as the S-video on those FD Trinitrons is quite superb as well (I might try the encoder setup again for better comparison). Looks nothing like what it looked on the European tv's I tried RGB on. Very nice tube by the way and definitely shows RGB as it should look.

I have owned the 27" FS120 set before and I liked it a lot. I had to get rid of it because the picture was too bright and hurt my eyes; even after turning down brightness and contrast. As long as the brightness on the FS120 I'm thinking about picking up isn't too intense, I will pick it up. One thing I will say about the 27" FS120 is that older consoles with component output like the OG Xbox and Wii looking stunning on the FS120 over component. This is for 2D games and especially for 3D games. One of the weaknesses of the FV300/310 sets is that they don't do a good job of displaying 3D video games. On the FV300 and FV310, I have tested N64 over composite, Xbox over component and Wii over component and with every system on these sets with 3D games, jaggies are more visible and when you are doing something like walking or driving past a 3D object, you can see diagonal lines moving up nearby 3D objects and it strains my eyes. I think it has something to do with how the FV300 and 310 sets are processing 3D images. On the FS100 and FS120 sets, 3D games look perfectly smooth with no jaggies and colors look amazing. I will say that 2D games do look better on the FV300 and FV310 because colors are more vibrant on those sets and the image is sharper. However, I still like the softer image of the FS100 and FS120 because it looks closer to how the CRTs I grew up playing on looked. Standard definition video also looks awesome on the FS100 and FS120. On the FV300 and FV310, with any 480i content, there is noticeable flicker and it strains my eyes to the point where it makes me borderline nauseous. On the FS100 and FS120 sets, I haven't noticed this problem.

That's weird, the FS120 and FV300/310 run on the same chassis (BA5D and BA6), there is nothing on the FV300/310 that should make it behave any differently than the FS120 unlike perhaps the velocity setting was set to on which does over sharpen the picture and might cause that behavior you're describing on 3D games. Aside from some slight difference between the FS and FV's colors and focus levels, the FS sets are really quite remarkable imo.

For the tube that had such high brightness, that might have meant it had little use, out of box these tv's had great brightness and definitely needed to be reduced to a sweet spot between 25% and 40% (this can vary). Maybe the FV sets you had had more wear and were therefor darker?

[Brad251]

I have owned the 27" FS120 set before and I liked it a lot. I had to get rid of it because the picture was too bright and hurt my eyes; even after turning down brightness and contrast. As long as the brightness on the FS120 I'm thinking about picking up isn't too intense, I will pick it up. One thing I will say about the 27" FS120 is that older consoles with component output like the OG Xbox and Wii looking stunning on the FS120 over component. This is for 2D games and especially for 3D games. One of the weaknesses of the FV300/310 sets is that they don't do a good job of displaying 3D video games. On the FV300 and FV310, I have tested N64 over composite, Xbox over component and Wii over component and with every system on these sets with 3D games, jaggies are more visible and when you are doing something like walking or driving past a 3D object, you can see diagonal lines moving up nearby 3D objects and it strains my eyes. I think it has something to do with how the FV300 and 310 sets are processing 3D images. On the FS100 and FS120 sets, 3D games look perfectly smooth with no jaggies and colors look amazing. I will say that 2D games do look better on the FV300 and FV310 because colors are more vibrant on those sets and the image is sharper. However, I still like the softer image of the FS100 and FS120 because it looks closer to how the CRTs I grew up playing on looked. Standard definition video also looks awesome on the FS100 and FS120. On the FV300 and FV310, with any 480i content, there is noticeable flicker and it strains my eyes to the point where it makes me borderline nauseous. On the FS100 and FS120 sets, I haven't noticed this problem.

That's weird, the FS120 and FV300/310 run on the same chassis (BA5D and BA6), there is nothing on the FV300/310 that should make it behave any differently than the FS120 unlike perhaps the velocity setting was set to on which does over sharpen the picture and might cause that behavior you're describing on 3D games. Aside from some slight difference between the FS and FV's colors and focus levels, the FS sets are really quite remarkable imo.

For the tube that had such high brightness, that might have meant it had little use, out of box these tv's had great brightness and definitely needed to be reduced to a sweet spot between 25% and 40% (this can vary). Maybe the FV sets you had had more wear and were therefor darker?

Doesn't the chassis just refer to the plastic housing that the CRT sits in and not the hardware? My KV-24FV300 was not used much. The owner bought it for his wife to put in their bedroom and she didn't use it much. It is a little brighter than my FV310 was but not by much. My KV-27FV310 that I owned had a perfect level of brightness and had no black crush at all. The TV saw moderate use for a few years by the previous owner but overall, the usage was in the low to moderate range according to the owner. I will also note that I tested another KV-27FS120 model near me one time with my Wii using component and that set had perfect brightness and properly displayed black levels. I didn't pick that one up because it had burn in on the screen. I'm not sure what to make of this. CRTs can dim over time but they can also get brighter over time if the flyback transformer has issues. The KV-27FS120 set that I owned saw moderate use by the previous owner and was overly bright. That same owner had another 27FS120 that I tested at the same time that had even more usage and that set was also too bright.

[maxtherabbit]

Doesn't the chassis just refer to the plastic housing that the CRT sits in and not the hardware?

no, in this context it means the electronics that drive the CRT

[maxtherabbit]

I guess on sets that have sub-par picture, you can crank up the colour and get an overblown picture over S-video and component that's gonna be more saturated, but ultimately it's gonna be just that : overblown. RGB tells you the true story regarding the sets quality. If it's RGB picture is not good, then the set is not good. cranking up the colour over the other connexions won't change that

that's the bottom line

[Taiyaki]

I guess on sets that have sub-par picture, you can crank up the colour and get an overblown picture over S-video and component that's gonna be more saturated, but ultimately it's gonna be just that : overblown. RGB tells you the true story regarding the sets quality. If it's RGB picture is not good, then the set is not good. cranking up the colour over the other connexions won't change that

that's the bottom line

Who in their right mind would do that only...

I think Classicgamer probably best explained it when he said he has seen dull rgb too and it was bad voltages.

As for Brad, that's an amazing amount of variations you've encountered!
I have seen a lot of FS and FV sets (including multiple new in box units that I picked up from resellers of old stock) and I never had anything close to that degree of variations between tubes, the most worn ones (generally the larger tubes) had less good focus and needed a higher picture setting, and absolutely all of them had corner geometry issues and black crush because none of them had been serviced and the users didn't calibrate. My only guess is the FV310 you had had been serviced and was adjusted in the service menu which is why you had great blacks right away. All of these tv's have really great tubes and if you can get one with low hours and you are happy with flat Trinitron tubes and aren't looking for the nostalgia curved tubes then you should be set for some absolutely fantastic gaming.

[FinalBaton]

All of these tv's have really great tubes and if you can get one with low hours and you are happy with flat Trinitron tubes and aren't looking for the nostalgia curved tubes then you should be set for some absolutely fantastic gaming.

100% agree with that