Sony 'XRB's as good as they say?
 

Hi,

Just looking for some input ...

I've been looking into an HDTV, and read a lot about the Sony XRB
series.

I went to a local dealer, and checked out an XRB tube unit, the
KD-34XRB960 to be specific. None of the other types, i.e., plasma,
DLP or LCD had a picture even close to the XRB tube unit (XRB means
'extended bit rate', from what I've read).

This set has been out for some time, so I was wondering if anyone in
the group has any practical data on these sets, as far as quality,
reliability, etc?

Thanks for any thoughts ....

Bill

Very nice, quite reliable, modestly priced. Still endemic with Sony's very
good design and engineering. However; as with most consumer electronics
products, engineering and manufacture seem to differ in the outcome and
reliability of their products. IMHO: I would probably purchase the item with
any additional service contracts that may be available. No, I do not sell
service contracts, just service many differing products and see a lot of out
of warranty work that the customer gets a real jolt when considering cost of
repair, etc. Cheers
"Darmok" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Just looking for some input ...

I've been looking into an HDTV, and read a lot about the Sony XRB
series.

I went to a local dealer, and checked out an XRB tube unit, the
KD-34XRB960 to be specific. None of the other types, i.e., plasma,
DLP or LCD had a picture even close to the XRB tube unit (XRB means
'extended bit rate', from what I've read).

This set has been out for some time, so I was wondering if anyone in
the group has any practical data on these sets, as far as quality,
reliability, etc?

Thanks for any thoughts ....

Bill

[This followup was posted to sci.electronics.repair and a copy was sent
to the cited author.]

In article ,
says...
I've been looking into an HDTV, and read a lot about the Sony XRB
series.

I went to a local dealer, and checked out an XRB tube unit, the
KD-34XRB960 to be specific. None of the other types, i.e., plasma,
DLP or LCD had a picture even close to the XRB tube unit (XRB means
'extended bit rate', from what I've read).

This set has been out for some time, so I was wondering if anyone in
the group has any practical data on these sets, as far as quality,
reliability, etc?

Thanks for any thoughts ....

First, it's XBR, not XRB. I think the original XBR stood for 'eXtended
Bass Response', as the first model simply had an internal subwoofer or
better speakers/amp added to a normal TV.

Check out www.agoraquest.com for Sony info.

Be EXTREMELY careful when shopping in stores. Out-of-the-box, most all
TV's have a picture that is too bright (white and light grays all
white), too blue, too contrasty (blacks and dark grays all black).
Further, both the source material can be suspect, and other people could
have messed around with the settings. Many higher-end Sony's have a
'pro' picture setting which is fairly close to NTSC ideal. Setting the
picture to WARM or Standard also helps.

I have the previous model XBR910. Widely known service menu tweaks can
let you adjust the TV exactly the way you want.

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On Sun, 5 Jun 2005 07:31:37 -0400, "Art"
wrote:

"Darmok" wrote in message
.. .
Hi,

Just looking for some input ...

I've been looking into an HDTV, and read a lot about the Sony XRB
series.

I went to a local dealer, and checked out an XRB tube unit, the
KD-34XRB960 to be specific. None of the other types, i.e., plasma,
DLP or LCD had a picture even close to the XRB tube unit (XRB means
'extended bit rate', from what I've read).

This set has been out for some time, so I was wondering if anyone in
the group has any practical data on these sets, as far as quality,
reliability, etc?

Thanks for any thoughts ....

Bill

Very nice, quite reliable, modestly priced. Still endemic with Sony's very
good design and engineering. However; as with most consumer electronics
products, engineering and manufacture seem to differ in the outcome and
reliability of their products. IMHO: I would probably purchase the item with
any additional service contracts that may be available. No, I do not sell
service contracts, just service many differing products and see a lot of out
of warranty work that the customer gets a real jolt when considering cost of
repair, etc. Cheers

Well, most reviews I've read were good on this model (XBR, not XRB as
I originally stated). It comes with a 2 year warranty on
parts/labor/tube. I've had 3 Sony's and they are all still working,
and they are 25 years old, 15 years old, and 14 years old (19", 27"
and 13" respectively). Hoping that these new ones will give as good
service as the older ones.

Bill

XBRs came out about 1985, right after the Profeel series. I've been
told that it actually stands for Xtra Brightnes and Resolution. Video
of this type did not have a bitrate at the time.

I am an owner of the first XBR projection TV. These things sat in
stores right next to a direct view and if you got to eye level they
looked every bit as good. Mine will again because I finally found a
fresh blue CRT for it.

Remember this much, XBRs are nice sets, but there will come a time when
certain parts, including those specific to XBRs will become
unavailable, then XBR means Xtra Bunch of Rubbish. It would by no means
be the first time.

Be careful what you spend, and never buy an RCA. FWIW, in my particular
area the 32" tubes seem to be dropping like flies, you might want to
decide between a 27 and a 36.

For maximum longevity, turn the picture control all the way down when
you turn it off, it seems the AKB pushes too hard causing cathode
stripping. These sets have multiple picture memories, you can actually
name one "turnoff". You could also switch to an unused video input,
then wait two minutes after turning the set on to "crank it".

JURB

I used to work in warranty service that was contracted for a number of
different manufacture sets. I was servicing mainly the Sony sets.

Sony makes a very high end line of broadcast production TV monitors,
cameras, and video taping machines. Their quality level in these lines
is outstanding.

In their TV lines, they took some of the phelosophy for their design.
Naturaly, you would not be able to have an affordable home TV set, if
they used the same exact desing as in their professional equipment.
But, their phelosophy of design is there.

Their TV sets are very dependable, and do have good performance. Like
anything else, I would suggest to take an extended warranty with the
set. Make sure that the CRT is covered in the warranty. The CRT being a
tube, can be undependable as far as its life span is conserned.

If all goes well, the MTBF of their CRT is about 30,000 hours. This is
very much an industry standard. This means that if used with maximum
contrast, its emission would be 50% down after 30,000 hours. If you
decrease the contrast to about 50% to 70% of its maximum range, the
lifespan of the CRT may be increased by about 30%.

As for myself, I have a preference for Sony TV sets, especialy in their
CRT, and LCD screens. In the plasma screens, I have a preference for
the Panasonic.

I am not in any way selling TV products, or have anything to gain by
being biased. What I am indicating is from my own observation.

On 5 Jun 2005 14:22:14 -0700, wrote:

XBRs came out about 1985, right after the Profeel series. I've been
told that it actually stands for Xtra Brightnes and Resolution. Video
of this type did not have a bitrate at the time.

I am an owner of the first XBR projection TV. These things sat in
stores right next to a direct view and if you got to eye level they
looked every bit as good. Mine will again because I finally found a
fresh blue CRT for it.

Remember this much, XBRs are nice sets, but there will come a time when
certain parts, including those specific to XBRs will become
unavailable, then XBR means Xtra Bunch of Rubbish. It would by no means
be the first time.

Be careful what you spend, and never buy an RCA. FWIW, in my particular
area the 32" tubes seem to be dropping like flies, you might want to
decide between a 27 and a 36.

For maximum longevity, turn the picture control all the way down when
you turn it off, it seems the AKB pushes too hard causing cathode
stripping. These sets have multiple picture memories, you can actually
name one "turnoff". You could also switch to an unused video input,
then wait two minutes after turning the set on to "crank it".

JURB

Those are some good tips. Thanks for the input.

On 5 Jun 2005 17:23:12 -0700, "Jerry G." wrote:

I used to work in warranty service that was contracted for a number of
different manufacture sets. I was servicing mainly the Sony sets.

Sony makes a very high end line of broadcast production TV monitors,
cameras, and video taping machines. Their quality level in these lines
is outstanding.

In their TV lines, they took some of the phelosophy for their design.
Naturaly, you would not be able to have an affordable home TV set, if
they used the same exact desing as in their professional equipment.
But, their phelosophy of design is there.

Their TV sets are very dependable, and do have good performance. Like
anything else, I would suggest to take an extended warranty with the
set. Make sure that the CRT is covered in the warranty. The CRT being a
tube, can be undependable as far as its life span is conserned.

If all goes well, the MTBF of their CRT is about 30,000 hours. This is
very much an industry standard. This means that if used with maximum
contrast, its emission would be 50% down after 30,000 hours. If you
decrease the contrast to about 50% to 70% of its maximum range, the
lifespan of the CRT may be increased by about 30%.

As for myself, I have a preference for Sony TV sets, especialy in their
CRT, and LCD screens. In the plasma screens, I have a preference for
the Panasonic.

I am not in any way selling TV products, or have anything to gain by
being biased. What I am indicating is from my own observation.

Thanks for your input. I've not noticed any brightness change in my
25 year old KV-1943 (19") set. Yeah, its over-scanning enough that I
miss most of those moving news banners that go across the bottom of
the screen, but that seems to be the only degradation. I didn't know
about the 30000 hrs. MTBF ... at 8 hours a day use, that equates to
about 10 years service.

Thanks for your input. I've not noticed any brightness change in my
25 year old KV-1943 (19") set. Yeah, its over-scanning enough that I
miss most of those moving news banners that go across the bottom of
the screen, but that seems to be the only degradation. I didn't know
about the 30000 hrs. MTBF ... at 8 hours a day use, that equates to
about 10 years service.


If you replace a few capacitors the overscan should be taken care of, those
old sets were very good in their day.

On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 02:17:51 GMT, "James Sweet"
wrote:


Thanks for your input. I've not noticed any brightness change in my
25 year old KV-1943 (19") set. Yeah, its over-scanning enough that I
miss most of those moving news banners that go across the bottom of
the screen, but that seems to be the only degradation. I didn't know
about the 30000 hrs. MTBF ... at 8 hours a day use, that equates to
about 10 years service.


If you replace a few capacitors the overscan should be taken care of, those
old sets were very good in their day.


They used a lot of electrolytic caps in that set. Its been a very
long time since I was in the back of it. About 10-12 years ago, I
replaced a cap in the "power ON start up relay" circuit. I didn't
even have an exact match .. just fished something close out of one of
my junk drawers, and its been working fine ever since. After 25
years, I imagine that most of the electrolytics will be bad. I think
manufacturers only guarantee them for 3 to 5 years service (at least
that's what I've found for computer grade 'motherboard' caps).

Thanks again .. after I fix up my KV-27EXR15, I'll give the KV-1943
another look. They've both been great sets.