Is anyone else here stockpiling CRT televisions ?

[Purkeynator]

I have a 26" RCA tv in my basement that I keep for light gun games as well as older consoles. I would love to find a nice 36 inch Sony Trinitron with component input. That would be the ultimate.

[Thrillo]

How about CRT monitors? I can't bring myself to go LCD, since a well-tuned Trinitron beats an LCD in every way that matters. My 21" Dell Trinitron runs nearly any resolution I throw at it (including 1080P HD) without any scaling BS, it accepts nearly any refresh rate, it has no lag like all CRTs, and it has deep colors. And I paired this up with a twin, for twice the desktop space. It was awesome...until my second CRT broke a few days ago .
Back to Craigslist I go...

[Soviet Conscript]

I thought about keeping spare CRT TVs since they're going to be hard to find in the future but I just don't have the space to hoard them all. I have a few already, but nothing too huge. The largest is 19". Even thrift stores around me don't sell them anymore, I was told they trash any that get donated.

that sucks, my local goodwill has a ton of cheap CRT's. most are really old and low quality though

[Sosage]

I'm tempted to find a large Wega now to replace my generic 27 inch Toshiba in the "classic" game room. I use to keep them around if they were 25-27 inch so I could convert the tube into an arcade monitor. Now...I dunno. They are kind of space hogs.

[MarioMania]

I got a 20' Sanyo..I have still, I got it still..I got a free 10' b/w TV & I have 4 Pocket TV's

[SPAZ-12]

I have a 34" crt for gaming, my dad got it from work in 1992 or some time around there. Some day I'll have to try to open it up and adjust the tube though, since the picture is rotated slightly. I also suspect that I'll need to replace either its flyback or some caps in the future, because the picture brightness varies sometimes.

Other than that, I have:
- 17" CRT monitor connected to my pc
- 19" CRT monitor in storage
- 13" color Apple monitor for my Mac IIci
- 4" travel TV being used as a monitor for my Apple IIe
- an old 15" tv for Pong and the Odyssey, old enough to only have RF in, and those cool dial channel selector knobs.

I don't think that I'll ever get rid of some of these. As nice as new TVs are, nothing beats a good old CRT for playing old games.

[nebrazca78]

I've got a MITSUBISHI 42" tube TV from 1989 I've already had moved into my game room as my main classic TV.

I've been looking for a 40" non-HD Mits for a while now. I think 40" (or 42" I guess) is the biggest tube TV you can get. Saturn looks like crap on my 50" plasma (but Genesis and SMS look great for some reason) and I want to be able to play gun games.

I have a 29" Trinitron with a subwoofer which is my current set and a 34" Trinitron in storage. Both have component inputs (480i) and S-Video.

I'm on the lookout for anything above 32". I would love to get a 36" and a 16:9 CRT.

I have a 36" 4:3 HD Wega CRT and a 32" 16:9 HD Wega CRT. They are fantastic for older games except you can't play gun games on them. I totally spaced on that fact when I got them. Now I have two 200 lb. tube TVs and the plasma but no way to play classic gun games (except on my old 27" Toshiba I guess).

[thchardcore]

I'm tempted to find a large Wega now to replace my generic 27 inch Toshiba in the "classic" game room. I use to keep them around if they were 25-27 inch so I could convert the tube into an arcade monitor. Now...I dunno. They are kind of space hogs.

Sup sosage!

[SplashChick]

In my friends neighborhood if you get up early on trash day and stalk the streets you can find one or two good tvs. Usually they are nice older TV that still work, just missing the remote or the family got a newer one for whatever reason. I have a friend with a gigantic plasma that just barely fits in his room and consumes most of his wall. I got it free because some guys gf threw a fit or something and there is now a crack in the top right corner.

That's pretty funny since it's illegal to throw away CRTs. =x

On topic, I've thought about it, but it just does not seem worth the effort and space to me. I've got a nice 19" and 13" that are pretty easy to move, but I just do not want to deal with a heavy piece of furniture like that. I've moved some other CRTs that were just in the 20"s and just that was enough of a pain to not be worth it. I see it like even if I do move that monster into my house, I'm going to have to move it out again some day when it finally breaks down.

[Gentlegamer]

Recently, the 13" CRT I have in my bedroom started acting up, so I went looking for a replacement: I felt like I was looking for the modern equivalent of an 8-track player! The only 13" CRTs still being sold are Disney-Hannah Montana, etc. sets.

My main gaming TV is a 27" CRT, nothing fancy, but I like it. I think I may need to "stockpile" some CRTs, as this thread suggests. Even when I "upgrade" to a HD LCD, I play too many classic systems to rely on LCD for quality display.

[BetaWolf47]

I want a good gaming TV myself... problem is, I want to save on my power bill in the long run, so I'm probably going to look for a good LCD screen.

I've got two current TVs. One is a roughly 19" Sony CRT which I got for my birthday 11 years ago. This thing has given me minimal problems over the years, if any, and even has a headphone jack to boot. Only problem is its really low quality. It has terrible sound and may be lower than 480i resolution. My friend said that his Xbox 360 games look worse on my TV than on his SDTV.

The other one is a 13" Magnavox which my parents let me borrow. My roommate uses it a lot more than I do though. This thing only has RF input, so I probably won't hang onto it.

My brother has a really nice CRT that I might try to acquire. It was made within the last 2 or 3 years since they stopped making CRTs. Its a flatscreen that has S-video and even component input. The only thing I don't like about it is the fact that it automatically brightens the picture if its dim, so some things don't look quite right.

[swlovinist]

I stated "hoarding" about a year ago. I now have about 8 sets, ranging from a 32 inch to 13 inch set. If I find a good looking CRT, I always pick it up.

[TheDomesticInstitution]

Currently in our house we have 3 CRT sets and one LCD. 2 of the CRT's are SD: a 24" and a 27". I wouldn't say we are stockpiling them, but more like filling spots in all of of main rooms.

While CRT sets are great for gaming, DVD's and Blu-rays look pretty great on our 46" 1080p Sony. I'll take a Blu-ray movie on an LCD set any day over a good looking DVD on a CRT. The fact that they only made up to 34" widescreen CRT sets, is also another minus as to having a HD CRT set.

I guess I don't have a real desire to stockpile CRTs, but I'd like to keep just one SD CRT around for light gun games.

[phreakindee]

Unfortunately, yes, I do try and collect CRTs. Unfortunately because I really just do not have the space. I have had to pass up on so many nearly flawless TVs it hurts. Craptons of them have been dumped at thrift stores recently since the digital TV switch. Not uncommon to see as many as 20 at a time that are worth looking at in a single Goodwill.
I have bought a Sony Trinitron 14" TV/computer monitor (has rgb inputs for old computers like the Atari ST and Amiga) and a portable color 8" Magnavox which I love since it's one of the few portables I have found with all sorts of connections.

Otherwise I have several computer monitors from various points in history, monochrome on up. These are especially important to me because computers are my main focus and I see CRT monitors becoming more scarce before TVs, at least around where I am. People at least try to reuse TVs sometimes but a new computer comes and the old almost always gets thrown away.

[Sanriostar]

Currently got:
3 Commie monitors
4 regular CRTs
and I've got a 32" coming to me in the next month or so from a friend who's upgrading to a HD flatscreen.
I'm gonna run out of storage with these things...

[thom_m]

CRT TVs are still the most common sets in Brazil, atlhough LCD, Plasma and Oled TV prices are dropping. So it's still not that easy to find big ol' CRTs for cheap like that.

My main (and only) TV is a 21" Phillips. It's not flat screen, but the image is quite good, and the sound is awesome. Too bad it's got only one AV in and no S-Video.

There's this restaurant I go sometimes that got a huge broken Sony just lying there, getting no love. They told me that's it's not worth it to fix it, or that there's no one here that can, or something like that. I wish I could buy and fix that thing but, as I said, they're not cheap here...and I doubt my Tv rack could handle that beast's weight!

EDIT: My PC Monitor is a huge, old 19" flat screen Samsung CRT that I love like a son. It was given to me used by my aunt, when she went LCD. It's handles every definition I ever tried, and the image is awesome. I'll only buy an LCD one when it's totally dead.

[VG_Maniac]

I've got a 27" Sony Trinitron CRT, which I bought brand new in 2004 (right before stores really started to get rid of their CRTs). All my older games look great on it, and the newer stuff looks really good on it too if you use 16:9 mode. I'm always going to hold onto it for classic games, and if it ever goes out...I will take it to a TV repair shop and have it fixed. I just don't like playing older games on widescreen flat panel TV's.

[nebrazca78]

That's pretty funny since it's illegal to throw away CRTs. =x

Is this true? I'll have to google it.

On topic, I've thought about it, but it just does not seem worth the effort and space to me. I've got a nice 19" and 13" that are pretty easy to move, but I just do not want to deal with a heavy piece of furniture like that. I've moved some other CRTs that were just in the 20"s and just that was enough of a pain to not be worth it. I see it like even if I do move that monster into my house, I'm going to have to move it out again some day when it finally breaks down.

Well it would be tough considering a huge TV probably weighs more than you do but you can always have a male friend or two help you out. How many times are you going to move anyway?

Currently got:
3 Commie monitors
4 regular CRTs
and I've got a 32" coming to me in the next month or so from a friend who's upgrading to a HD flatscreen.
I'm gonna run out of storage with these things...

First thing I though when I saw this was, Communist monitors? Who would buy those things? But obviously you are talking about Commodore monitors. When I was a kid I used our "Commie" monitor for NES games because it had RCA inputs. It always had a nice picture.

[betamax001]

I bought a 13" GE TV for 5 bucks at a local thrft store. It worked fantastic for awhile, but now it wont turn on. I thought it was the fuse, but it looks fine. I'll probably toss it unless I can figure out what the hell happened : /

[SplashChick]

Is this true? I'll have to google it.

Yeah, it's considered hazardous waste because of some of the chemicals inside(like mercury IIRC), so it's illegal to dump them.