HiFi Component TV - what and why
In the late 1970s, just when you thought you'd finally added every possible component to your towering Hi-Fi stack - along came the Component TV.
Hope you enjoy the video. I feel it came together better than most. Although based on my recent form, it'll likely turn out to have more faults than a seismologist's map.
I plan on doing a patreon exclusive video in a few days - I'm just waiting on a new camera arriving first.
Comments (73)
I'm very late here but i'm watching your old vids as comfort food while nursing a stomach bug. In the tube (valve) amplifier world there is a capacitor in circuit that, when ideally failed, could possibly send mains voltage directly to the chassis. It's colloquially called the "death cap" and has thus gained a mythical status due to it's hyperbolic nom de plumbe. My amp tech is fond of saying, "Show me the dead men."
That doesn’t sound good for repeat custom. Hope you’re feeling better soon.
Am I imagining it or wasn't there a brief fad for all sorts of TV audio receivers? From fancy devices like this, to little portables you could slip in a shirt pocket? I even seem to remember boom-boxes supporting AM/FM/TV bands, although google is completely failing to back up my memories on this one.
Radio/TV receivers were never a thing over here...I think the frequencies were different. However they seem to have been very popular in Japan and slightly so in the US. There are plenty of Walkman models for Japan with AM/FM/TV where the same models sold over here were AM/FM.
I have a vague memory of seeing one of these back in the 70's, possibly in John Lewis in Oxford Street? Somewhere posh and expensive anyway
I have to admit I jumped to the end of this one to look at the credits roll. I noticed the double print of my name the first time right away, and thought it was a bit funny, then when it appeared again I had another laugh, but in an older video I remember you saying you just cut and paste the outro and hope its okay every time. I don't blame you, but I had another laugh at seeing the credits roll aligned, but I'm still on there twice and just imagined you trying to pronounce it when putting it in, what with all the jokes you make about how people say things (Tape scratch machine comes to mind) Regardless. That looks like something I would have gone mental for as a kid. By my time we already had RCA out on the TV that went to the stereo, so we could record off the air just fine, but if I had one of these, I'd likely have loads of tapes of audio from the TV. Loved seeing the muppets back in action again, and with any luck I'll have those .gifs in my collection soon enough.
Thanks for letting me know about the duplication of the name. I’ll sort it out on the next upload (the video after next). That list has become a bit confusing as sometimes people change their username, so when they leave it says “Mr X’ has deleted his $5 donation...but there’s no Mr X on the list. I’m guessing there are a few people on there who no longer donate.
Have to say, I kind of want one of these now. Just for the audio display.
The track I picked showed it at it’s best. If it had been a typical brick walled pop song with loads of stuff going on at once including singing...it wouldn’t have looked half as interesting. Less is more.
I really want one now.
Where I come from JCPenny is pronounced J C Pen-a
Does anyone remember the Sony Profeel range of component TVs? You started with 20 or 27 inch screen module then could add a Tuner Box, Teletext Box, Viewdata (Prestel) Box, external speakers etc and could assemble what you required. Beautiful Trinitron picture and marketed by Sony as ‘future proof’! This all fell apart with the arrival of NICAM... they did not support it and had no plans to. In the end I got a 3rd party upgrade kit and managed a total of 20 years use. Considering the price paid - it was the best component system I ever had in daily use!
I saw a very early Panasonic plasma TV recently where the tuner and all the connections were housed in a separate box. Even the speakers were clipped to the side and wired in like an old boombox.
Interesting this was also a Technics product. I came across this illustration from a Matsushita artist showing the “living room of the future”. This shows a two screen concept with a small tv used to monitor recordings or use teletext. I wonder if this product is the realisation of this drawing? <a href="https://twitter.com/dt91c/status/1091266854172078081?s=21" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/dt91c/status/1091266854172078081?s=21</a>
That GIF will go great with my Flippin' 'Eck mug :D
A note on device synergy, tuners like this were designed to be used with timers like the Pioneer JT 215A which you reviewed a little while back. It wasn't really until VCR's came out that built-in timers were commonplace.
Yup, the first TV I had in the my bedroom as a teen in the late 1970s was a no-name 13inch black and white. No remote control. Rabbit ear antenna for VHF and loop antenna for UHF. A device that would be generally unrecognizable to a millennial :-)
Facepalm <a href="http://www.giphy.com/gifs/4KFx6PIxfMGKis8Lht" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.giphy.com/gifs/4KFx6PIxfMGKis8Lht</a> Your Comment <a href="http://www.giphy.com/gifs/1zJUWoKk2ry3Mozsst" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.giphy.com/gifs/1zJUWoKk2ry3Mozsst</a> Flippin eck: <a href="http://www.giphy.com/gifs/8FPe7fBxIsZmLq5ICV" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.giphy.com/gifs/8FPe7fBxIsZmLq5ICV</a> Enjoy!
New camera? Apologies if you mention this in the video (not had chance to watch this one yet as at work here in NZ now). But did you plump for the BMPCC4K in the end? If so let us know if you'd like any advice on using it and bits of support kit we found useful so far. We've had ours for a few months and progressing from the 1080p version was simple enough but going straight in from other cameras to the BMPCC4K would be a bit of a logistical leap. Definitely suited to filmmaking as opposed to video work but that's just how we use it. However the reward either way is outstanding picture quality and actually pretty easy to use for a great price. (advert over!) But as I say, no worries if you went with another camera, they are all getting pretty high end nowadays - basically they are continuing Moores Law of progression and of course are now just computers that instead of a keyboard have a lens.
It’s the same old camera...but using the new led light panels. EDIT Oh you’re referring to the text above...nope, but all will be explained in the pat-ex vid.
Great video as always. You talked in the end credits about your BW-TV I also had a black and white TV as a child and used it with my ZX81. I got a colour TV for the ZX Spectrum two years later. I loved this computer so much. If you want to play all of those old computers again I recommend having a look at "Super Life of Pixel" for consoles or PC. Brought back the memories. I know you are not a big gamer but the game is perfect (and very hard) for all of use playing home computer games in the early 80s.
Very stylish device, nice retro-presentation via the tiny b&w-screen. While you were doing the introduction, I spotted the barely visible scale plus "scope"-button and instantly thought "pushitpushitpushit" :-) Cheers !
Another fascinating bit of tech. When I saw that Sony model my jaw dropped, as I have an amp and tuner set that was the first audio stuff I bought in the ‘70’s that looks like it’s from the same era.
Puppets!
A pity it pre-dated stereo TV broadcast. It would have been a must-own piece for me if I even knew of its existence.
This video was such a joy to watch. If I ever put together a full size hi-fi stack again this would be a must have component.
I had totally forgotten that JC Penny's had their line of electronics - it was the thing to do since they were a major competitor to Sears who had their own line of electronics. Both JCPenney's and Sears were on the higher high end of mainstream stores with good sized electronics departments in them which made going to the mall with my mother and aunt pretty bearable. But I had no idea at the time that these are just rebadged products, as a kid I always assumed every big store had the money to hire their own engineers and build factories to make this stuff.
Most of our electronics came from JCP growing up thanks to their credit plan and catalog making it much more accessible especially in the small towns. I remember when we took our JCPenney VCR to a VCR repair in the late 90s (it was about 10 years old by this time), the repairman told us that it was a high-quality, professional grade unit, manufactured for JCPenney by NEC. I kind of wish I still had it!
Weird fluctuation in audio levels around 11:47 Matt. on the end credits so people may not notice but just thought I'd mention. :-)
I noticed it and there’s no scientific reason for it - so I couldn’t fix it.
Thanks for the great video Mat, would love actual gifs of the muppets** How about covering speaker kits? This speaker kit is reportedly "best kit under $400 but only $250" and beats speakers that cost "$500-$1000." Seems like no one should buy commercial speakers. " " <a href="https://www.parts-express.com/tritrix-mtm-tl-tower-speaker-components-and-cabinet-kit-pair--300-702" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.parts-express.com/tritrix-mtm-tl-tower-speaker-components-and-cabinet-kit-pair--300-702</a> **I do think they'd at least raise awareness of the muppets - From the statistic you showed of viewer retention, it seems like only 10% or so of you viewers ever watch the muppets, but you know that already.
As far as speaker kits go...I’m more one for ready made speakers - there are some great speakers around for very little money - seems crazy to pay more for something I’d have to make myself. But never say never. The Gifs are here: <a href="https://gfycat.com/@TheMoans" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://gfycat.com/@TheMoans</a>
Awesome! Always cool to see my favorite brand get some recognition; my receiver, turntable and speakers are all TOTL gear from MCS. What a weird piece, didn’t know these existed!
Quite a nice visualiser that when connected to those speaker level inputs. We had the CX-500US JVC with the built in colour tv (perks of my Dad working in Saudi where stuff seemed to hit much earlier and cheaper) - but blimey it was a heavy lump and the tape deck had the worst flutter ever. I still managed to connect my speccy to it :D
DHEW compliant? That's the old US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (which has long been separated into Departments of Education and Health and Human Services - in fact, not long after that sticker was applied!). I wonder what their rules were about TV? Weird. FCC, I'd expect, but not DHEW. Great video and thanks for the Moans bit! About the channel knob. In the USA, Channel 1 went away in the 1940s. On the UHF band the number of channels keeps getting smaller. The upper end of UHF-TV was initially channel 83 (890 MHz), then channel 69 (806 MHz - to accommodate cellphones and some land mobile above that), and soon it will be 52 (698 MHz). On this artifact, the full 82-channel, three-band, 54-890 MHz spectrum is available - just as the TV Gods intended! :-D
An all round top Techmoan vid. Cheers Mat.
My first TV was a Philips Combi TC-10, a TV Cassette Radio combination boombox. What would you call that? A CasTeiVer?
Brilliant! I would have loved to have one of these in my tiny little room in the 1980s. Incidentally my oldest surviving cassette recording from May 1979 was made by attaching a microphone to the old black and white tube TV in my parents' bedroom that was our family's second TV. The second outro GIF (JIF?) gives a whole new meaning to "I clicked your comment" LOL
I did a lot of audio-from-TV back in the day too. With experimentation I found that that dynamic microphones near a TV produced too much buzz but condensers worked well. I eventually had a nice set up of condenser mics of a portable tape recorder set up near the speaker, sending a signal to my better tape deck through the auxiliary inputs, and recorded that way, pausing to remove commercials. :-)
This is another video you will be remembered by. Great video! I actually grew up with b&w television. My parents weren’t too interested in tech. When I was 12 I actually gotten 3 b&w tv sets from the trash, so I could watch all aired channels at once.
Brilliant. Did you end up working as a vision mixer as a result of this experience?
One comment about PAL/SECAM vs NTSC: those are colour standards, they're not important if you have a black/white TV. Only the picture frequencies are important (50 Hz vs 60 Hz), most likely you're able to adjust the V-Hold enough to make the TV display a 50 Hz (PAL) signal without problems. There are some other minor differences between different TV standards, but you'll be able to overcome them with the brightness and contrast controls, just give it a try ;-)
I just knew this would become a thing. I immediately regretted mentioning NTSC when I saw the edit. I think I’ll have to snip that second out.
Cool, I knew those small TVs from portable sets, I even used to own one. People were regarding those little screens as "to small to watch anything". They should see the people of nowadays, watching full movies on tiny phone screens... There was an article about that this week in a Swiss newspaper, mostly young people even seem to like that more than a big screen and surround set...
That’s a good point about people watching things on phones. I suppose the extra resolution helps a bit though.
Sorry, kind of running late on this one. Just finished watching it. I've never seen these before, but it made me think of those 90s era boomboxes that had the little black and white CRT in them. Don't know if you've seen those. I've tried to pick one up a few times on ebay but the price was always too high. Loved the muppet section too!
I’ve got a JVC CRT Boombox in the attic that needs quite a bit of repairing. I saw one with a colour CRT recently, that would be nice to have.
That's another thing I never knew existed before now; an excellent video, Mat. Your outtro remarks are interesting. I am considerably older than you so I remember only small black and white screens in my youth. Bring back Andy Pandy, that's what I say.
Flippin' eck, I love that visualizer.
Haha, I appreciate the dig at the "BEWARE: CATHODE RAY TUBE" folks. Not sure which is more common, that or always being told we should recap everything immediately. And what a nifty machine! That audio visualizer is what I'd use most I imagine. Kinda sad that I missed out on the days when JC Penney sold stuff like this, it's always been middle of the road clothing, bed sheets, and perfumes as long as I can remember.
Kind of like Boots in the UK. A boring chemists now...but once a wonderland of cool stuff.
Five second videos ... reaction GIFs ... sorta like Max Headroom's "BlipVerts"!
So excited to see this video! I'm not sure that I was the only one to do so, but I spotted this JCPenney unit on eBay and just knew Mat would love it! So I crossed my fingers hoping that I was right and sent him a link. Getting a reply back that he had just ordered it and was planning to feature it in a video was like getting a letter back from Santa Claus!
Thanks so much for telling me about the eBay listing - I would have thanked you in the video but I’d forgotten who told me about it. Glad it was a patron.
I bought a 1970s era Roberts 'TV audio radio' at a hospital fete for a quid in the late 90's, it worked perfectly off the built in antenna and was quite surreal to listen to, I suppose mainly as I'd never imagined a 'TV radio' before. Being mono and with only a headphone jack, I don't really know what it was for other than someone with severe vision problems, as I can't imagine much sport wasn't also on radio already. I sold it for quite a bit more a few years later, before it was made useless by digital switchover.
Fascinating piece of kit, superbly presented as always! We used to have an Aiwa combined, tv+AM/FM radio and cassette player in a single portable unit about the same size as the unit you demo today for use in the kitchen. In think it could record audio from the radio but not from the TV, and it could receive a TV signal ok via its telescopic antenna. I do remember our first colour TV being delivered in 1968 - as kids we were so enthralled that we used to sit and watch the coloured stripe test card! Around that time, I do remember debating with my school friends what colour the Thunderbirds vehicles were - we knew them so well but only ever saw them in b&w. Colour TV was such a revelation! Seeing Batman & Robin in colour for the first time was incredible too. Back then most people in the UK didn't buy but rented TVs from DER or Radio Rentals. My dad somehow obtained a Russian made 'Vega' portable colour TV at a low cost in about 1982. I say 'portable' because it had a smallish screen and had a handle on top, but it was too heavy to move very easily. But that's what I used for my Sinclair Spectrum - I think The 8 Bit Guy is due to do a Sectrum review soon. Great work as always, Mat. I have no idea what the puppets were on about, never having seen a reaction GIF, but I am looking forward to their first ASMR video....
Hi Mat, Just so you're aware, Pateron seemingly has a new quirk (well for me anyway) of logging you out everytime you try to "Like" or "Comment" on a post. It switches to the annoying "match these store front/traffic lights/body parts" captcha to log you back in even after you've logged in to view the video?? Just thought I'd mention it in case your comments and likes aren't equalling your views. And now I've completed Pateron's annoying puzzles, I can say "as usual great stuff" and can't wait for the exclusive video. Hope you're well mate :-)
My 83 year old father remarked the other day that "Anyone who would pay $3000 for a new top of the line color TV is a damn fool" - then I reminded him, that at age 32, in 1968, he paid $599 for new 25" color set, which is more than $4400 in today dollars! - He then said "Why don't you go take a long walk on a short pier"
Brilliant as usual Mat. I remember seeing one of these beasts in a Pennys circa 79 and wondering why anyone would want such a thing. The whole 'recording from TV' thing never occurred to me. Ah you young whippersnappers and your stories of your black and white TVs. I remember when we got our first color TV, (a massive 25 inch console machine from Zenith) in the summer of 1967, which included a long, long visit by the TV repair guy to 'tune' the color, three days after the television was delivered. My brother and I, being off school, just sat on the sofa and watched what he was doing, annoying him to no end, I'm sure. The old Black and White was sold off, rather than given to us kids for our bedroom.
Interesting! Never heard of such a device. Thank you! We are about the same age so I also remember b/w televisions, and I don’t miss them 😁
I was born in the late seventies, but growing up in the 80s and into the 90s (in Canada) just about everyone I knew still had a B&W television somewhere, but not their main set.
Fantastic, I can see why you picked the JCPenney, as a waveform display it looks superb. I especially like the illuminating scale, I originally thought that was a sticker. It just happens that I was having a conversation with a couple of friends about old TVs with tuning dials last night, funny how things work out. I have a plan for those puppet gifs too...
B&W televisions were more popular than people may think. We got our first colour TV in 1973, at which point the B&W went into the sewing room where we kids would watch our shows.
I’m always aware when I make these videos that a good proportion of viewers don’t even remember life before YouTube. I’m just a year or two too young to remember the excitement that came with the introduction of colour TV into our household, although I remember seeing movies like ET in the early 80s and they would often have a small ‘color’ TV in the kitchen...and I’d be amazed that anyone could afford such a luxury.
Excellent! I still have that Motion Electronics tuner you showed. It didn’t cope with NICAM on TV sound, but as the tuner included FM it would decode stereo if the channel had the 19khz pilot present. I did hate the DIN output on the rear though!
Great video production and flippin eck..brilliant
Fantastic! We hade a Swedish B/W tv the I grow up. Couldn't turn those heavy knobs to change channel, 1 or 2, to see the 15 minutes kids TV in the 70's... Shadow puppets from Bulgaria or such. Great video, as always!
Am I doing it right? <a href="http://freegifmaker.me/images/2eehJ/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://freegifmaker.me/images/2eehJ/</a>
You are, and there’s also a link in the video description to gifs for anyone who wants a ready-made version.
Brilliant, amazing work. And the long intro bit about the TV was good too. LOL
I grew up in the 90’s and had a black and white TV gifted to me new for Christmas in 97 or so. And truly everyone I knew up until about 2002 had a black and white TV somewhere in the house in service, wether it be the kitchen, or garage workshop, or basement.
It seems useful for having an Atari Video Music persistently connected to your Hi-Fi, if it were color. Also, I never knew or thought JCPenney sold Hi-Fi equipment; today, it seems very focused on fashion and novelty electronics. (I knew Sears did, but that's a completely different beast...) Finally, some advice: you should also mention that using an external device to record TV audio not only became obsolete due to cheap VCRs, it also became totally unnecessary due to VHS Hi-Fi eliminating any advantage.
Did the US ever have Hi-Fi quality over the air TV sound in the 70s or 80s? The BBC invented Nicam stereo for broadcast TV in the 80s