Saturday 31 March 2012

"It's a (bad ass) Sony!"

Woah! Score! Went on a journey today to collect a Loewe Calida 5072 (yeah, they awesome-yet-problematic E3000 chassis again... with a 72cm screen! The ultimate CPS1/2/3 and Neo Geo screen...) and a SCART equipped Sony.

The Sony cost me $10. Picked it up from the garage of a friendly Vietnamese family. The TV belonged to their Grandma (maybe she died? I didn't ask...) Either way, the TV was in tip-top condition and also had the original remote intact. I was pretty amazed to see that this piece of history was made in West Germany! Firstly, I was expecting "Made in Japan" and, secondly, how strange it feels to have something that was made in a country that's no longer listed in the atlas...

So, after some kind words with my girlfriend (it's true what they say about Trinitrons: damn heavy!) we got the thing up the stairs. Plugged it in and was instantly astounded by how sharp the focus was! Craps all over my modded Blaupunkt in this regard. So far, so good!

Next, given the vintage (Germany reunified in 1990, right?), I was pretty keen to see what was under the hood. A few minutes of head scratching later, I found the 1 screw holding the back in place (3 plastic tabs do the rest of the job) and the cover slid off. I could hardly believe my eyes! Very different technology to the Loewes and Grundigs I'm used to. And, best of all, analogue potentiometers galore!

This bad boy is a keeper! Expect some serious front panel pots in the coming weeks!

(Further reading: Obsolete Technology Tellye ! )

Full frontal
WTF?! The original "It's a Sony" sticker intact 20+ years later?!
Sony KV-C27 (chassis AE-1)
Greetings Windows XP! Text is actually legible...
Nice geometry... no adjustments made (yet).
Convergence grid
Aliens vs Predator
Forgotten Worlds
Pang
What's this?! This adjustment is usually found on the flyback...
Amazing! The screen (and speakers) are completely shielded!
SCART port and external speaker jacks
Pots, glorious pots!
... and it doesn't stop there! 

4 comments:

  1. Man, you couldn't have posted this 2 days ago could you haha! Would have grabbed this over the PVM in a second, not that i'm disatisfied with the PVM but bigger is better!

    Not sure my last comment went through about the PVM stuff, email me at seething_draconist@hotmail.com when you get a chance.

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  2. play 60fps games in a 50hz tv (same as me) can this be super negative in a way that can damage tv? games seems like run nicee in my setup but i dont know if it is safe for my sony tv

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    Replies
    1. Nah... your TV will be fine. SCART TVs can handle anything between 50 and 60 Hz typically.

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  3. KV-C27 is great as far as colors and scanlines go, but since it's such an early model (1986?), the geometry correction isn't all that great and there are severe geometry distortion on bright images.

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