Well, it depends entirely on your taste. CRTs have a much better contrast compared to LCDs, but maybe your CRT needs service.

Have you played around with the brightness and contrast settings on the CRT? I find they look best in a slightly darker environment too, and definitely without any light sources in front of the screen.

dominusprog wrote on 2024-08-20, 17:42:

Well, it depends entirely on your taste. CRTs have a much better contrast compared to LCDs, but maybe your CRT needs service.

I think you are correct as it's now developed a fault where it turns off by itself and flashes an orange light. CRT's + mail service... don't ever consider it!

Probably needs calibration.

Don't feel too bad. It has gotten exponentially harder for me to find CRTs from even 6 years ago when I started. Used to be if I was patient, I'd see someone giving one away every 3-6 months. Haven't seen that in years. The ones I do find tend to have issues that have thus far proven beyond my ability to fix. It does seem we are approaching the last days of the CRT. Probably not this year, or even the next. But I'd be shocked if many people, even enthusiast here, have working CRTs in 10 years.

I hope I'm wrong though. Or someone makes a 4:3 OLED panel.

Namrok wrote on 2024-08-20, 20:27:

Don't feel too bad. It has gotten exponentially harder for me to find CRTs from even 6 years ago when I started. Used to be if I was patient, I'd see someone giving one away every 3-6 months. Haven't seen that in years. The ones I do find tend to have issues that have thus far proven beyond my ability to fix. It does seem we are approaching the last days of the CRT. Probably not this year, or even the next. But I'd be shocked if many people, even enthusiast here, have working CRTs in 10 years.

I hope I'm wrong though. Or someone makes a 4:3 OLED panel.

To be honest, I think you may be right. I used to be into the arcade scene and all their CRT's were dying to the point of no repair possible... They could often service the chassis but the actual tube or neck... Not really. I had 2 Ridge Racer arcade cabinets in the past (x1 deluxe with a Hantarex Polo 2 32" CRT in, x1 stand up model with a 25" Hantarex Polo 1 CRT) the deluxe's CRT tube died on me in the mid 2000's and i scrapped it. My other one the screen's chassis crapped out due to age, got it serviced and the tube went so i sold it that was around 2018.

New old stock tubes came up now and then and commanded INSANE prices and this was around 5 years ago. I can't imagine what they would fetch now. Most of their CRT's were from early 80's cabinets most often so it kinda gives you an idea of when they really will be gone. I doubt CRT tech changed much over the years or got more reliable but i could be wrong. Certainly wasn't any better in my cabinets.

Either way, I'm sticking to my 19 inch LCD now as the CRT is not very well at all and I'm not prodding around in it, PSU's and CRT's are things i just don't tend to mess with and for good reason.

If it had not developed another fault, I would has said what others said already, that perhaps it needed to be adjusted or serviced. Sometimes, the CRT itself may have just seen a lot of use and no longer works as good as it used too.

That being said, while I would not mind having a CRT or two around to play with for pure nostalgia, I'm also not looking for any. I have a working Dell 4:3 LCD that works good, looks good, and takes up much less space and doesn't weigh a ton. As much as I love reliving the 80's and 90's, some of that older tech is just getting too hard to find and maintain, so I gave up on CRT's quite a while ago, and like you, old power supplies as well. With PSU's, there really is no reason to use an old one when there are modern alternatives or can be adapted to work in most all cases. I tend to try and focus more on the core components (MB/CPU/RAM/Video/Sound) over the power or externals.

However, I will admit, if I had unlimited free time,that would probably be a different story. I would try and save as much of it as I could. Sadly, that's just not the case. 😀

Crinale0 wrote on 2024-08-20, 15:29:

What am i missing? Even the black levels are better on the LCD which is one of the best points of a CRT isn't it? Is it just my eyes being used to LCD after so long? Is my CRT garbage? Is it the reflections from outside?

Ding ding ding! The surface of a tube is much brighter than that of an LCD panel. The former will compare a lot better in a dark room.

I don't really understand whats going on. My LCD seems to be worlds apart from my CRT and its a cheap ex office HP LCD. I also noticed Windows looks really crisp on the LCD whereas the CRT looks blurred.

Some video cards (such as my GTX 750 Ti) upscale the current resolution to the maximum supported by the monitor. This is less noticeable on LCDs, since they have to upscale lower resolutions anyway.
CRT monitors can also display a fuzzy image at high refresh rates.

My CRT's have always had a brighter, sort of phosphor grey look over my LCD's, I was never really impressed with the black level(s).
What did impress the hell out of me was the absolute liquid smoothness of the CRT, especially in the older FPS games, everything just seemed to flow so effortlessly, like water on ice.
I'd compare screens of Quake 1 side by side, move left to right, it was just beauty in motion, LCD=Sandpaper, CRT=Water.
And the depth perspective and perfect rounded pixels were much better for me on my 18" Princeton CRT then my gaming LCD.
But honestly, the geometry issues, the heat generated and the space the CRT took up, just was not worth it in the long run.