Advice on CRT purchase

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mystic_llama

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I'm looking at grabbing a CRT, as I'm sick of the crap black levels and contrast on my LCD and to get an LCD anywhere close to acceptable is cost prohibitive. There are two I'm looking at and was hoping to get some opinions on which may be the better choice.

#1 - 21" Dell Ultrascan P1110 (Used, $40)
#2 - 22" HP P1230 (New, $100)

Right now, I'm leaning towards the HP, as it's in box and has never been opened. Provided it's been stored properly, I'd imagine I'll get the most life out of it and it should be pristine as far as image quality goes. But, it's also $60 more and I can't find a ton of information on it in regards to it's quality versus the Dell.

Anyone have an info/experience with either of these? Any advice is appreciated. :confused:
 
What are your goals?
Gaming? What type?
Graphic design? What type?
 
Gaming, mostly FPS. I currently have 2 Dell 2009WA. Colors and viewing angles are great, but the blacks/contrast are terrible.
 
nvgrim said:
Just get a cheap Korean IPS
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did you bother to properly read the op? his issue (at least one) with LCDs are the crap black levels and the korean ips/pls ones are as bad as every other non-va lcd

and in regard to the crts, i think the dell one was pretty good but being used its hard to tell how much life is left in him; i would try to spend as much time with it before taking it (i.e. testing)
ok, just looked up the hp one, it has a diamondtron tube NICE; a unused crt in 2014 is def. compelling;
i'd go with the hp

mystic_llama said:
Iit's also $60 more and I can't find a ton of information on it in regards to it's quality versus the Dell.:
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i guess the tube is used in a lot of other high end crts; maybe reviews of those apply to the hp one too; probably is just a rebrand?
 
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Small world, OP. I'm assuming you live in Missouri? I'm in Columbia myself, and was eyeing the same diamondtron. Assuming the seller isn't full of shit, yes - it's a very good tube. Admittedly, I was going to contact the seller and get the monitor as well. The Dell P1110 is a good monitor as well, but I believe the Diamondtron is probably better. If the Dell was brand new, I'd still say go for the Diamondtron.
 
Yea, from what I understand, the 1230 is probably a touch better, but I'm not familiar with how to properly calibrate a diamondtron.

According to this post, it looks like there might be a menu option to adjust the G2 voltage, which if true, would be great!
 
Go with the cheaper dell, save the excess toward a korean 27" IPS, it will change your life!
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Small world, OP. I'm assuming you live in Missouri? I'm in Columbia myself, and was eyeing the same diamondtron. Assuming the seller isn't full of shit, yes - it's a very good tube. Admittedly, I was going to contact the seller and get the monitor as well. The Dell P1110 is a good monitor as well, but I believe the Diamondtron is probably better. If the Dell was brand new, I'd still say go for the Diamondtron.
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Small world indeed, I am in MO. So far, no word from the seller, so who knows if it's legit or not.

Thanks for the info guys. Looks like worst case if the seller never responds (or jbltecnicspro snags it first ;)) the Dell may be worth a look.
 
mystic_llama said:
I'm looking at grabbing a CRT, as I'm sick of the crap black levels and contrast on my LCD and to get an LCD anywhere close to acceptable is cost prohibitive. There are two I'm looking at and was hoping to get some opinions on which may be the better choice.

#1 - 21" Dell Ultrascan P1110 (Used, $40)
#2 - 22" HP P1230 (New, $100)

Right now, I'm leaning towards the HP, as it's in box and has never been opened. Provided it's been stored properly, I'd imagine I'll get the most life out of it and it should be pristine as far as image quality goes. But, it's also $60 more and I can't find a ton of information on it in regards to it's quality versus the Dell.

Anyone have an info/experience with either of these? Any advice is appreciated. :confused:
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Hey OP

I've had two Dell P1110's. They were great monitors, for awhile. However there was a defect with this particular line which led to a slowly increasing brightness. I bought both of them new, (2007 and 2010). My 2007 lasted me until 2012 but I had to apply the "windas" (see 24 crt thread) fix twice. My 2010 lasted until 2012 but I had to apply the fix by the middle of 2011.

I understand that the HP is a rebranded Mitsubishi tube. They sometimes lose focus after a few years but rarely suffer from any "brightness" issues

Spend the extra $60 and go with the p1230. A new crt is like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow these days....
 
Unfortunately the last 3 Sony CRT's I owned eventually suffered from the increasing brightness issue (Sony G400, FW900 and G520P) although the G520P had a slightly different issue, the black levels started developing a red tint and not so much the increasing brightness issue.

Anyhow I'd definitely go with the P1230, It would be great owning a new CRT in 2014.
 
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CRTs are an unstable technology, which accounts for their drift over time. However, with the right tools and knowledge they can be handily calibrated.
 
jkmetal said:
Hey OP

I've had two Dell P1110's. They were great monitors, for awhile. However there was a defect with this particular line which led to a slowly increasing brightness. I bought both of them new, (2007 and 2010). My 2007 lasted me until 2012 but I had to apply the "windas" (see 24 crt thread) fix twice. My 2010 lasted until 2012 but I had to apply the fix by the middle of 2011.

I understand that the HP is a rebranded Mitsubishi tube. They sometimes lose focus after a few years but rarely suffer from any "brightness" issues

Spend the extra $60 and go with the p1230. A new crt is like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow these days....
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Unkle Vito has said a couple of times that the G2 edit in WinDAS is just a band-aid, and doesn't solve the problem. Perhaps some WPB procedures could have fixed this?
 
Agree -- the HP. New and FWIW 140 kHz/2048 x 1536 at 85 Hz suggests it was one of the more capable models...
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Unkle Vito has said a couple of times that the G2 edit in WinDAS is just a band-aid, and doesn't solve the problem. Perhaps some WPB procedures could have fixed this?
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Maybe but as a college kid at the time who spend around $50 on both monitors, I had them both recycled.
 
jkmetal said:
Maybe but as a college kid at the time who spend around $50 on both monitors, I had them both recycled.
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Yeah, sorry if I sounded accusing in my post. I've been learning a lot about the calibration process for these trinitrons (I got a signal generator and colorimeter to calibrate these guys), and was just stating my opinion on the whole G2 thing. For $50 for both, you definitely did good. :)
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Yeah, sorry if I sounded accusing in my post. I've been learning a lot about the calibration process for these trinitrons (I got a signal generator and colorimeter to calibrate these guys), and was just stating my opinion on the whole G2 thing. For $50 for both, you definitely did good. :)
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It was actually $45 for one and $50 for the other. I still did good.

I still have two Trinitrons in good working order, a Dell p991 and a Sony F520. I'm not currently using them but they are not getting tossed.
 
jkmetal said:
It was actually $45 for one and $50 for the other. I still did good.

I still have two Trinitrons in good working order, a Dell p991 and a Sony F520. I'm not currently using them but they are not getting tossed.
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EDIT: Off-topic, nvm. I'll PM you.
 
So, I picked up the HP today and I do have some concerns. There seems to be very slight color shifts on the left and right sides, right at about the 1/3 and 2/3 marks. Left being slightly green, right being slightly more red/magenta. Is this something that can be corrected with calibration, or could this monitor fubar?

Good news is, if it is something that can't be corrected, the seller has about 4 more of these guys and said he'd have no problem swapping out if anything was wrong with this one.
 
mystic_llama said:
So, I picked up the HP today and I do have some concerns. There seems to be very slight color shifts on the left and right sides, right at about the 1/3 and 2/3 marks. Left being slightly green, right being slightly more red/magenta. Is this something that can be corrected with calibration, or could this monitor fubar?

Good news is, if it is something that can't be corrected, the seller has about 4 more of these guys and said he'd have no problem swapping out if anything was wrong with this one.
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He has four? Woohoo! Thanks for the heads up. As for this monitor - probably fubar. Sounds magnetized, honestly.

I'll be sending him an email. Since I live 2 hours away, I'll see if he's willing for me to bring my pattern generator to fire it up before I leave with one.
 
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jbltecnicspro said:
He has four? Woohoo! Thanks for the heads up. As for this monitor - probably fubar. Sounds magnetized, honestly.

I'll be sending him an email. Since I live 2 hours away, I'll see if he's willing for me to bring my pattern generator to fire it up before I leave with one.
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Yup, said he took them when they were clearing out a warehouse or some such and they were just going to pitch them. Glad he nabbed them.

I was afraid of that. It's really pretty minor (I barely noticed it) and have manage to fix it a bit playing with the purity settings, but if I can't get it right I may see if I can swap it for one of the others.
 
mystic_llama said:
Yup, said he took them when they were clearing out a warehouse or some such and they were just going to pitch them. Glad he nabbed them.

I was afraid of that. It's really pretty minor (I barely noticed it) and have manage to fix it a bit playing with the purity settings, but if I can't get it right I may see if I can swap it for one of the others.
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So it's some dude at his house then? See if you can find a service manual to further fix the purity settings inside the monitor.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
So it's some dude at his house then? See if you can find a service manual to further fix the purity settings inside the monitor.
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Yeah. He seemed like a nice enough guy. Had no problem with me opening it up first to check it, so I don't think he'd have an issue letting you hook it up and test it. Unfortunately I was in a rush that morning so I didn't have time to hook it up before taking it. Wishing I had now, but luckily I live pretty close to the guy if I do need to swap it out for another.
 
mystic_llama said:
So, I picked up the HP today and I do have some concerns. There seems to be very slight color shifts on the left and right sides, right at about the 1/3 and 2/3 marks. Left being slightly green, right being slightly more red/magenta. Is this something that can be corrected with calibration, or could this monitor fubar?
Click to expand...

if it's very slight, it will be hard to notice unless you're actively searching for it on a pure white screen. It's hard to get perfect uniformity on displays, and landing/purity adjustments on the OSD can help (as you've discovered). A degaussing coil may help further.
 
mystic_llama said:
So, I picked up the HP today and I do have some concerns. There seems to be very slight color shifts on the left and right sides, right at about the 1/3 and 2/3 marks. Left being slightly green, right being slightly more red/magenta. Is this something that can be corrected with calibration, or could this monitor fubar?

Good news is, if it is something that can't be corrected, the seller has about 4 more of these guys and said he'd have no problem swapping out if anything was wrong with this one.
Click to expand...

I'd personally find that bothersome, and would swap it.
 
Where are you guys? I have a Mitsubishi 22 inch monitor sitting in the garage doing nothing. Can't sell the thing because it's too heavy to send anywhere. Took it out for a spin a few months ago and it still runs with great colors. The size volume even dwarfed everything else on my desk. You can come pick it up for free if you're in the Charlotte NC area.
 
Bigc208 said:
Where are you guys? I have a Mitsubishi 22 inch monitor sitting in the garage doing nothing. Can't sell the thing because it's too heavy to send anywhere. Took it out for a spin a few months ago and it still runs with great colors. The size volume even dwarfed everything else on my desk. You can come pick it up for free if you're in the Charlotte NC area.
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I'm in Missouri and so is OP, so we won't be coming over any time soon. That said... OP - have you been able to fix the purity errors? I forgot to mention - make sure you do the adjustments using a pure primary color, and not white. Do it with pure red, pure green, and then pure blue. Adjust until the screen has no blemishes in the color.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
I'm in Missouri and so is OP, so we won't be coming over any time soon. That said... OP - have you been able to fix the purity errors? I forgot to mention - make sure you do the adjustments using a pure primary color, and not white. Do it with pure red, pure green, and then pure blue. Adjust until the screen has no blemishes in the color.
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I have not had time to mess much with it. I'm hoping I should be able to toy around with it some tomorrow evening.
 
I think I'd try for the swap. I remember having a Sony W900with this problem that was evident as soon as I turned it on. Adjusting the "landing" can fix this in some monitors, if that is an option you see in your OSD menu.

Of course, sometime degaussing the screen can fix color irregularities, but that should really be happening every time you power on.

All things being equal though, I'd just swap.

Edit: ok, guess this had been suggested already. Good luck-I'd love to find some new old stock CRT's, but good ones like those are almost extinct.
 
salty said:
I think I'd try for the swap. I remember having a Sony W900with this problem that was evident as soon as I turned it on. Adjusting the "landing" can fix this in some monitors, if that is an option you see in your OSD menu.

Of course, sometime degaussing the screen can fix color irregularities, but that should really be happening every time you power on.

All things being equal though, I'd just swap.

Edit: ok, guess this had been suggested already. Good luck-I'd love to find some new old stock CRT's, but good ones like those are almost extinct.
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I disagree. If he can fix it with the purity settings, then he's good. If red is pure red, green is pure green, and so forth... Then the fact that he needed to adjust it back doesn't take away from the CRT. However - if he can't fix it then, yeah - a swap will be needed. Glad the seller is cool about it.
 
mystic_llama said:
I have not had time to mess much with it. I'm hoping I should be able to toy around with it some tomorrow evening.
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Did you ever get a chance to mess with it and see if you were able to fix the colors?
I'm looking at these same exact monitors. I'm leaning towards the HP as well, since it is new, and the Dell may have the increasing brightness issue.
 
I envy you, OP.

I have a pretty decent CRT, but I never use it because windows moves my stuff every time I enable it or set it as primary - and doesn't move it back afterwards. I don't game enough to justify making the CRT my primary.
 
I just picked up one of the HP P1230s this evening. Games look great on it, though text on the desktop is slightly blurry. I've read that there is supposedly a knob on the side of the monitor that can be reached with a screw driver to adjust the focus, but I'm having trouble finding more information on where exactly it is located..
 
Tarball said:
I just picked up one of the HP P1230s this evening. Games look great on it, though text on the desktop is slightly blurry. I've read that there is supposedly a knob on the side of the monitor that can be reached with a screw driver to adjust the focus, but I'm having trouble finding more information on where exactly it is located..
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Question - what refresh rate are you running at? Even though Sony recommends 85hz with the GDM monitors (Artisan, F520, and FW900 all have a recommended mode that runs at 85hz), I find that taking them down to 75hz makes them sharper without the headache-inducing flickering. Try lowering your refresh to 75hz and see if that sharpens it up.

Due note, that many people are now used to LCD's and forget that CRT's are not as razor-sharp as them. CRT's by nature are going to be softer, their geometry isn't as perfect, and they will have less-than-absolutely perfect convergence. It's just the nature of the beast. Sounds to me like your monitor may be perfect, and that you're just going to have to get used to the "softness" of it. But hey - they're great for games and still beautiful devices to look at. :)

EDIT: And just so I make myself perfectly clear - it sounds to me like you DON'T need to reach for the focus. Likely you'll take it out of focus and will have trouble dialing it back in. If you don't have a good test pattern for focus (I use a signal generator myself), then don't mess with it - especially if it's new. Like I said above, sounds to me like you're not used to the "soft" image of a CRT. FYI - my Artisan has the same dot pitch as your HP, and they're of the same ilk - (Diamondtron is Mitsubishi's version of Trinitron - they're both fundamentally the same).
 
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I agree with jbl in saying DO NOT MESS WITH YOUR FOCUS KNOB!

Because, yeah, CRT's are bad for normal computing no matter which way you slice it.

If you want good sharpness with text, you have to run a low refresh rate. But then you'll get flicker. If you want to get rid of flicker, you have to increase your refresh rate, which increases blurriness.

I've found that 75-85hz is good enough on most CRT's, but if I'm going to do extended reading or writing, then an LCD will just be less exhausting

But if I want to play a game or watch a movie, I'm right back on my CRT. The reduced sharpness isn't a big deal in those situations. I can even run at 60hz without noticing flicker, except maybe in a really bright game like Mirror's Edge. Or a bright movie like THX 1138. But you should be watching movies at 72hz anyway.
 
EnhancedInterrogator said:
...Because, yeah, CRT's are bad for normal computing no matter which way you slice it....
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I agree that LCDs can be superior for certain office tasks. That said, a high end, well focused CRT, run within its physical limits, remains, uniquely, a very good general purpose display for everything.

I'd echo the same cautions regarding adjusting the focus and other controls if you don't have a good test pattern. However, is the HP P1230 the same inside as the Mitsubishi 2070? Some of those came poorly focused from the factory. (And you might need to give it the attention now that it didn't get there...)
 
Thanks for the tips.. I tried dropping it down to 75Hz. There is a very minor improvement, but I'm not sure it's really worth the extra flicker. The sharpness also varies across the monitor. The center is very good, while the corners, especially the upper-left, are not as good. That may just be the nature of CRT through.
And yes, I believe it is the same inside as the Mitsubishi 2070SB. That was why I wanted to adjust the focus, I had seen other threads about the 2070SB/p1230 needing manual focus adjustment. Apparently the p1230 has holes in the case allowing you to adjust it without removing the entire case. The p1230 doesn't appear to.
 
Tarball said:
Thanks for the tips.. I tried dropping it down to 75Hz. There is a very minor improvement, but I'm not sure it's really worth the extra flicker. The sharpness also varies across the monitor. The center is very good, while the corners, especially the upper-left, are not as good. That may just be the nature of CRT through.
And yes, I believe it is the same inside as the Mitsubishi 2070SB. That was why I wanted to adjust the focus, I had seen other threads about the 2070SB/p1230 needing manual focus adjustment. Apparently the p1230 has holes in the case allowing you to adjust it without removing the entire case. The p1230 doesn't appear to.
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If you just remove the case of the monitor and don't touch anything but the focus knobs, you'll be safe. Just make sure you get a good focus pattern. MEME pattern is your best bet. Google "NEC Monitor Test" and download it. Run it, and choose the "readability" option and set the resolution to "High," and then adjust the focus. There is a "focus" option, but I find it lacking. Personally, I prefer the MEME pattern, but good luck finding one online (you won't find one) - searching for MEME will pull up internet meme's. :mad:
 
EnhancedInterrogator said:
How does it look at 60hz? If it's nice and sharp at 60hz, then I think it would be a bad idea to mess with the focus, you can only go downhill.
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It does look good and sharp at 60hz, even at 2048x1536. I probably won't mess with it then, I didn't realize how hard it would be to get it back to its default setting if I ended up making it worse..
It looks great in games, which was my main goal :)
I think modern versions of Windows render text better for LCDs than CRTs. Text in older games like Deus Ex looks good at 85Hz, even when text in Windows is slightly blurry.
 
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