well,i finally had enough of everyone making me jealous with their hdtv talk and figured it was time to jump in,so ,being cheap i decided to go the crt route and picked up a hatachi 65f710
its not the latest and greatest out there,but its definetly no chump .dvds and hd cable signals look awesome-even better than i was hoping for.regular cable is pretty good,but i have to say it(reg cable) looks better on my tv than my buddys 4000 dollar sony,i dont know why but it does
the salesworm tried to tell me that i wouldnt be happy with this tv so i told him to beat it and ordered it from another salesperson right in front of him.
it was only 1743.00 delivered and set up(308 lbs...i took the delivery)60 bucks well spent...
anyway if you dont have a ton of cash to spend on a new hdtv set dont shy away from crt rptvs you can pick up something really nice for a few bucks

I think CRTs in general are underrated as a technology. If the weight isn't an issue, then you get the advantage of a well understood technology. Every technology has its idiosyncracies that can annoy owners (rainbow effect in DLP, burn-in in many technologies, dust particles in LCD, fading an reliability in plasma, etc.) and the biggies for CRT in my mind are weight, and in some TVs, the noise. The noise isn't an issue if your ears are too old: our 27" Sony has some ~16kHz or so scream that I find annoying, but my wife can't hear, and my kids have never known any other TV so they don't know they should be annoyed by it.

Your comments about regular cable looking better on your TV shows that sometimes, perfection isn't what you want. It's like the complaint some report with Axioms, that they're too harsh or whatnot. CRTs are more analog than most TV technologies, and sometimes analog is much more forgiving than digital when there's a noisy signal.

As a bonus, the 300 lbs means that no one will be walking away with your TV in the event of a break in.

--Martin

What a dumb a$$ a customer, with cash in hand, and your going to try to upsale him.. I was in sales for a while.. wow… anyhow how.. they calibrated your TV correct? Might want to get it calibrated every year or so, that is one thing with crt’s, well worth a profesional calibration, and the picture will always look wonderful.. For 1700$ you cant go wrong!.. good score!

hitachi has a -magic focus-feature that uses sensors around the screen to automaticly adjust the bulbs.it seems to work well as my last tv was a hitachi and i would use that feature a couple of times a year and the picture was always and still is good
this brand has been good to me i hope this one is as reliable as the last

Last year at about this time, we were in the same boat as far as what kind of TV to purchase.

All the "New Tech" TVs were still(and I guess, still are, somewhat)in a state of flux.

The ol' tried and true RPCRTs were, and still are, great performers with an almost cheap price!!

......kinda like my favorite speakers....

We've had our Mits 65 for about a year now, and the only complaint we have is the very slight burn-in from black bars.(watch out for those guys....they can sneak up on ya!)

But yeah, HD stuff is like viewing the world thru a very clean picture window. and at a very reasonable price!

So yup, while the size and weight is substantial, the impact on the bank account is minimal!!

Good deal all around!

When I bought the plasma I hired four guys to carry the 36 inch Sony up the stairs to the bedroom. Money well spent. The old Sony still has a great picture and tunes stations better than some of my other TVs.

There are a lot of great buys on crts out there. 36 inch tvs for $350 (US).