2600 color output more vibrant than 7800?

[congobongo]

I took two copies of the same 2600 cart, stuck one in the 2600 and one in the 7800 turned both machines on then flipped back and forth between them. The picture displayed from my 6-switch 2600 had really vibrant colors and the 7800 seemed a lot duller though maybe a bit sharper. Is this common? Does the 7800 produce a duller image overall, at least on 2600 games?

[vintagegamecrazy]

Hmmm, I have no idea

Vintagegamecrazy

[jjessop]

The original 6 switch console was a 2 PCB design with the RF modulator mounted outside the main PCB's massive aluminum shielding. That, and the fact the luminance lines were buffered with a 4050 cmos hex buffer (unlike the 2600A and later versions) produced superior video with respect to the other latter models.

Jerry

[john_soper]

Yeah, what Jerry said. Also when you do a 7800 S-video mod, you can control how strong the the 2600 and 7800 chroma(color) signals are, they are two separate signals. However if you make the 2600 color too strong, it causes interference on 7800 games.
http://home.earthlink.net/~resqsoft/7800_mod.htm
has the details. This makes me suspicious that 7800's were manufactured for weak 2600 color (you're not the only one to notice).

When I did an s-video mod, I mounted a switch to choose which color signal I wanted, then made them both nice and strong.