CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

I don't think anybody disagrees that CRT is in its final chapter. Prices on spare parts and even complete working units in grade A condition with new tubes are down the tubes, so to speak.

I've got too much inventory and it's hard to sell anything other than a minty green CRT of the right type. Those, I can still sell, but for a shadow of what they used to bring.

So who's still hanging on and still watches content on your CRT projector?

And who's about ready to retire it this year if the right digital projector deal comes along?

I've got a Marquee 9500LC Ultra hung, same as it has always been for years, and there's a JVC RS45 hanging right below it.

The Marquee has developed a focus/sharpness fault (image gets less sharp with increasing contrast, the problem appearing at the edges of the screen and migrating inwards as contrast is increased) and I can't even motivate myself to replace the neck cards which is probably the issue. I use the JVC almost all the time now.

I've got a custom painted, absolutely beautiful G90 (you may have seen it, metallic purple and black, either pimptastic or fantastic depending on your tastes) sitting here ready for me to drop the Marquee and put it up in its place and I haven't bothered to do it.

I'm planning to scrap out four Marquee chassis this coming week (they don't have tubes installed but I have enough tubes for them) just because I need the shelf space in my storage unit to run my Antminers. Those Antminers can generate revenue for me, while the Marquee chassis are worthless these days. I'll save the power supplies and boards of course.

What I figured would happen has happened: I have too much inventory left over when interest has dropped to just about zero.

I don't even want to admit to just how many bare CRTs I have stockpiled. A lot have really light wear, tubes that people would have easily bought for hundreds several years ago. But today, if a tube isn't minty it isn't sellable for 50 dollars or even less.

I have about, to give an idea, a solid 18 perfect, new condition 9" red CRTs, mostly LUGs, and nobody will offer me 10 bucks for one of them. If I gave them away for free and just charged shipping cost, people would probably balk at paying the shipping.

Stick a fork on CRT, I think it's pretty much dead.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12026 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Ya I'd agree with you there. I finally crossed over to the dark side a few months ago with my RS-45. (And I've hardly watched it since... Rolling Eyes

)

Antminers, eh? Are you running them already and are they actually turning a profit? I never got into mining because I kept hearing the bitcoin you earned by mining would barely pay for the mining hardware and the power to run & cool it. And then the arms race with the other miners meant your mining hardware was probably obsolete before you paid it off. It sounded like it made more sense to spend the money to buy the Bitcoin directly.

I would think the power would be a particularly bad problem in FL, where you need to burn power to cool the building. You should move to Canada. Laughing

From what I've heard, the biggest miners are in China, where they have cheap coal & hydro power. But according to recent reports, the Chinese govt is trying to kill it off.

gjaky · Joined: 05 Jun 2010 Posts: 2790 Location: Budapest, Hungary

I have no plan to retire CRT in the future, in fact I'm just reaching the top now, a bit late to the party eh?

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12026 Location: Fort Collins, CO

OK, sorry to hijack, but... (Maybe we'll go from power-burning CRTs to power-burning miners... Laughing

)

According to this article, the economics may have changed with the higher prices of BTC. An Antminer S9 would supposedly mint about 0.112 BTC per month net of pool fees, and then you'll burn something like $100-$120 in power costs. That says at the current ~$15k BTC price, you'd throw off a profit of $1680 per month. You'd pay for the Antminer in two months and then it would be gravy.

Am I missing something, CJ? That sounds too good to be true.

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

Well, my miners are set up and ready for work. I got them for almost nothing.

The beauty of it is that I don't have to pay the power bill where I'm setting them up! Very Happy

It's at my warehouse/storage facility. (I'm a tenant, I don't own it.) Power is not billed separately, and there are no contractural stipulations regarding power usage.

So, with free power, even old, low hashrate miners are profitable.

It's also just fun to learn something new.

I plan to commission the miners today. I've named them Larry, Moe, Curly, and Shemp.

Just for giggles I am also buying small amounts of every virtual currency I can find on the exchanges. Not much, as little as 20 dollars worth, but if any of them should repeat what bitcoin did, that'll pay for my Porsche 911 and then some, with any luck.

I don't think it's a terrible idea to make small buys in the market. If you can afford to drop a 20 on something just for fun, buy 20 bucks worth of Ethereum.

jbmeyer13 · Joined: 03 Dec 2010 Posts: 1135

Like Gabor I have no interest in retiring my hot rod 9500LC. The only thing which will drive me to eventually change is when I can move on from my 100" Electrimask to a 10' wide scope screen and maintain or improve the image quality I have right now. An ST130 screen of that size will likely cost $6-8K so it's not worth doing until 4K or perhaps 8K HDR is really sorted out. I have to figure that will be another 5-yrs.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12026 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Oh OK. Near-free miners and free power, that's perfect for mining!

cdsnyder · Joined: 08 Jan 2018 Posts: 7 Location: wisconsin, usa

Though I haven't posted on here up until now, this might be my last year. I only have a mid (low?) tier marquee 8000. Previous owner took good care of it though. I can spot some tech bulletin rework on the boards and power supply. It's getting tired though.

I watch older movies and for some reason they just look better to me on a CRT. CRT seems to do a good job hiding compression artifacts on bad digital encodings. My video games seem more like movies because I don't see hard edges on pixels. Granted, high resolution digital and better post processing can probably accomplish this even better now.

Years ago a bought a 2008 marquee 9500 ultra chassis for cheap with burned in tubes (simulator use I'd guess from the odd wear pattern). I intended on re-tubing it and replacing my aging 8000. Any tubes I found back then would have cost me $1k and I wasn't wiling to do it. So it collects dust. It's still an option though, I suppose. I'm only rocking a 7' wide screen, so I think the 10L lenses that came with it would work too.

I'm definitely at the crossroads though.

gregstv · Joined: 27 Aug 2007 Posts: 628 Location: Australia

Still happy with the Barco 919 shooting onto a 96 inch screen. No plan to change just yet.

HaydnG90 · Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 1335

The love affair still continues with my G90. I have a parts mule and a spare working YA so I'm covered for most eventualities. A move out of the country might bring an end to this romance.

**kal** · Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 10:49 pm Post subject:

Changed over in early 2013 from my Barco Cine 8 Onyx clone to a new JVC RS56 because CRT wouldn't fit easily in my new basement. Was pleasantly surprised that it also threw a much better picture overall (should have done it sooner)! Details: http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32973

Kal

km987654 · Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 10:56 pm Post subject:

No plans to change. Still a great experience for me.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 2:18 am Post subject:

Still doing it. Everything I THINK I might switch, I go to Costco and look at the hideously artificial looking 4K flat screens, and think 'nope, I'll recap all the boards in both 909s one day to see if the drifting happens less.'

I spent a couple of hours aligning the stack to my digital over the holidays, I hadn't done that since I put the system in, and it looks better.. still not perfect though.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 3:24 am Post subject:

Watched my D50 all through Christmas. That's where I took the StarTrek screen shot. Very Happy

mc86 · Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 4:50 am Post subject:

I am confident there are a lot of guys who only check the forum a few times a year (or less) but who do still run their CRTs. That describes me, anyway. Some combination of being 1) busy living life and 2) content-enough with my setup has me not looking to change. You know, my family and I have watched one movie most Friday nights for the last several years in our modest HT setup on my trusty little ECP 4500. You may chuckle, but it just won't die. Besides, the memories of watching films, discussing the films and learning about life from them (in so much as one can) has been a non-trivial part of raising my kids. I truly don't think adopting 1080p on an LC, EM-focusing, 9" machine would have changed the core of that experience.

That said, I haven't kept track of the general CRT marketplace at all, but sounds like I should look for a 9" machine maybe that is within a ~300mile radius of Pittsburgh that I could pickup for free-to-cheap...but...

Cheers,
Matt

barclay66 · Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:48 am Post subject:

Hi,

I'm using my 9500 Ultra on an almost daily basis. That won't change in the near future. For special occasions (e.g. 3D, movies which need more light output) I might add a digital machine though...

Regards,
barclay66

barclay66 · Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:49 am Post subject:

**kal** · Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 12:38 pm Post subject:

HaydnG90 · Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 1335

mp20748 · Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 11:37 pm Post subject:

I will stay CRT, at least until I can be excited about an image on a screen that comes out a box fired using a lamp.

To include of course, be able to afford something better. Right now I still have a 9500LC on the ceiling that has been a huge problem in more ways than the many quirks this model has. It's a long story, that I promise I will open a thread one day and share where we are with things.

And though I've stopped my Mods sales, and not really thinking about firing up the soldering iron to do anymore on that. I still like this forum and hanging out here, to include many of the folk that I've come to know even going back to the early AVS days.

Age can bring a many wonders, as times goes on and you find yourself needing and requiring more medical help and support. I now have more than 6 decades on this earth, and would really like to squeeze a few more years out of life, and I've found these past years that both video and audio, music, etc. has gotten better. I have to also say to some degree, there is still a problem with both that can be irritating.

When they can get a digital or newer visual technology to be more life-like, its then I would feel more comfortable watching movies on it. It's been awhile since I've seen anything of the newer digitalis, but based on what I've heard from some, it's still not there yet. And until that happens, I'll just remain being content with CRT.. Wink