How's this for color

Yeah, I'd call this a miracle

I had a similar vintage 19" RCA 'knobber'/300 ohm that I tuned up the best I knew how...was good to practice on. I was surprised how good the ol' gal looked. Only problem was it picked up noise from the DTV converter box which I suspect was due to the fact that it wasn't designed to 'shield' against digital noise, probably the knob tuner; when I placed the converter box further away it cleared up. I donated it to a local charity with a detailed note about the converter box requirement and the need to fine tune channel 3/4 with the knob fine-tuner so that whomever got it wouldn't just toss it thinking it didn't work properly.

UHF 27 vs. my VHF 3/4 could be it, frequencies and/or completely different tuners (at least on the RCA). Or maybe just the TV differences themselves although RCA made them pretty good back then. Not even RCA anymore > Thomson.

Not knowing about this at the time I bought an RCA and a GE in '93:

A 31" and was ~$800 on sale at the time. The vertical geometry sucked, a tech came out and said it wasn't adjustable (fixed yoke) so they shipped me a Home Theater version replacement (they were out of the basic RCAs so a free upgrade); geometry wasn't perfect but improved, I don't think they could ever get 'em right. I was told back then that all the big tubes were Mitsubishi. Anyhow a few years later it blew a large ceramic cap in the HV to the pic tube. When I ordered the schematic stuff there was a batch of all these tech service bulletins, predominant issue was soldering issues and especially the microcomputer shield causing all kinds of weird problems. Excluding the cap I might have gotten a decade out of it before it died but that cap would count for the average joe. I cannibalized it for the chassis and such and its carcass (+tube) is waiting in que out in the garage for a trip to a recycle place.

A 27" GE (Thomson/RCA). It developed tuner issues right after warranty but the coax got yanked, although the problem didn't start when the coax got yanked; similar chassis as above but scaled down and there was a bulletin for tuner section soldering. I resoldered the connector and every component in the tuner section and it came back to life but tunes a little noisy, probably a cracked chip cap. Still have it and use it though as a picture&picture to my main TV, s-video or composite connections to a converter box bypassed the tuner issue. Color, geometry, overscan, and such got off over the years so I used it as tuning-learning TV; it's not too bad now but couldn't get the 'red' red (a little orange). The degauss circuit went bad, probably from turning it on/off too much when it had the tuner problem (that and slapping it would make it snap out of it - lol I was frustrated at the time). So if I move it to another position I have to jumper the 31" chassis degauss circuit to it and give it a turn-on pulse; I routed the 27" degauss cable connector through the back plastic for easy access.

This reminded me of a pic I took from my Sony 32HS510 back in 2006, Great TV but shame it only lasted 3 1/2 years before failing.

It's a redhead thing!

Maybe!

From what I found online the HS510 series had a common failure with the D-Board going bad, Apparently the replacement part was a revised board to prevent failure again but the TV would have to be re-calibrated after installing, I couldn't find anyone in town that would fix it without charging an arm & a leg for parts / labor & calibration.

But at least I have one good CRT left that still works, Sony 34XBR960N.

Yeah they're not worth the repair costs and hassle, I see 'em on Craigslist dirt cheap. The issue becomes where to recycle the dead ones. Best Buy will take up to 32" free although these are different shape then what I think they intended for their requirements (i.e. some 32" 4:3 sets may weigh as much as these sets).

Nice, an N, I would like to find one of those vs. a 960 sans N but keeping a lookout for either one. Have come across a few 960 deals but always bad timing for me and those go quick. A poster on the 960 board said the N's are rare.