uncletom wrote:Very good points you have there, Princess.
I just like Nanao, and the MS8/9 are practical monitors. They are dual-sync and the MS9 has a comfortable adjustment-PCB with long harness. And the chassis with yoke can be adapted to work well with most 28-29 inch CRTs. Also, I've always been fascinated by the quality of Nanao compared to other, cheaper brands like Hantarex and Intervideo. Both the latter brands seem to use the same components and CRTs (very often Videocolor) which mostly aren't bad, but if you compare them to Nanao's monitors with Toshiba CRTs, you will notice the difference.
I have two Nanao MS9, one with a Hitachi and the other with a Toshiba tube and also a Hantarex Polo 15-25KHz with NOS Videocolor A66EAS00X01 tube. I can't say anything about mid-res as I have no interest in that but when it comes to 15KHz stuff I think the Hantarex is in no way inferior to the Nanao. It's true that the stock components used by Hantarex are sometimes of a cheaper quality like the infamous Teapo brand capacitors but you can easily upgrade to higher quality ones.
What I dislike about the MS9 chassis is that it has a lot of SMD components (resistors, diodes, transistors, etc.) on solder side as opposed to the Hantarex chassis where everything is through-hole and on parts side. Also, Hantarex replacements are all easily available, including LOPT, switching transformer, coils. This can't be said for the MS9 (and the other Japanese-made chassis). When the LOPT goes tits up on that all the spare compatible tubes you may have will become useless (for it). Supposedly there is a Dienen replacement (HR46530) but it's as hard to find as the stock one.
uncletom wrote:Also, personally I collect alot of 24 kHz games from Sega so 24k is for me very important. And I've got a few large old Sega monitors for free which I've gutted and stored as 'parts'. With a nice re-cap and a 'new' CRT they will have new life again. That is why I focus on the MS9 chassi. One could say that if there is a single 'best' chassi to test certain *large* CRTs with 24 khz, it is surely a MS9.
I'm not denying that but it would be interesting to compare the results with other dual sync chassis like Polo/2 or Intervideo VP.
uncletom wrote:I want to mention to you further, Princess, that I also have a number of MTC 9000 chassis (Hantarex) that I really look forward to fixing. Currently I'm using a MTC9000 chassi to test any 20-21'' CRTs I find in the garbage disposal room. However, I didn't make a thread about it as I'm under the impression that larger CRTs and dual sync chassis are more important to document. The low-res CRTs are simple to swap because the MTC9000 is a low-res 15k monitor, and almost any 20-21 CRT from TVs will be basically plug'n play.
My motto is that 15k games should be played on a max size 21 inch CRT. Any larger screen and you will see the pixels and scan lines too clearly, with the exception of driving/flying/simulator games that do 15k I feel could be played on a screen as large as 29''. The 24k and 31k games should be played on a 28-29 inch CRT because these have smaller pixels and denser scan lines.
For the 15k games I think that the 21'' MTC9000 is the best possible monitor, even better than any Nanao brand. I would still never use a monitor as large as 28'' for the 15k games because I don't feel good about it. There's an optimal size for every occasion.
I couldn't agree more but the problem arises when you dislike Euro/US (wooden) cabs and love Japanese cabs. Unfortunately there isn't much choice when it comes to screen size. Almost all candy cabs from the 90's on have 29" monitors. I live in Italy and the only Japanese cabs you can easily find here are the Naomi Universals so I have to deal with that size. Well I also have an Aero luckily but yeah it sucks that there aren't 21" versions of Astros, Egrets, Naomis, etc. It sucks BIG time!
In the next months I'm planning to properly fit 28" monitors on the Naomis and 25" (and possibly 20") on the Aero.
uncletom wrote:
I want to answer this as well:
"Why not just mate it with one of such chassis (which are very easy to find)? It will be as good as it gets and no yoke tinkering needed..."
- No, there will always be yoke tinkering needed with any CRT swap regardless if it's low-res, mid-res or even a CRT swap between exactly the same monitor type and size. This is because we're dealing with analog devices and magnetic fields. Every CRT is unique, it has it's own little differences. You cannot manufacture two identical CRTs and expect them to behave exactly the same way. That is why you have that many adjustments and pots on the chassis and neck-PCB. And that is why you almost always need to add small magnets to the sides of the yoke, CRT, or around the neck. At least on the larger monitors. The 14 and 20 inch monitors doesn't have the same errors visible because everything is smaller, thus also smaller deviances.
That's correct of course. I used the wrong word (tinkering), I meant no yoke swapping.