As CRT TVs becomes scarce and demand surges, could we one day see a return to CRT manufacturing for Retro?

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Supermodel_Evelynn
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Joined: 21 Aug 2022, 14:28

As CRT TVs becomes scarce and demand surges, could we one day see a return to CRT manufacturing for Retro?

Post by Supermodel_Evelynn » 08 Jun 2026, 00:18

Something interesting I noticed lately, about 8 years ago you could get a CRT TV for $10, prior to that you could get it free.
But today there is a huge market online for used CRTs that go for hundreds of dollars and people are paying for it.
This suggests to me there is demand, more so than we realize. A big problem with buying CRT these days is the aging electronics inside them, I recently got a nice Sony Trinitron 21" CRT to add to my collection, still has decent brightness and all a real testament to SONY's incredible 90's electronic quality build, but I can see the soldering on the board and components a lot of stuff are starting to get corroded and needs to be recapped etc

Perhaps when all the CRTs are gone we might see manufacturing picked up again? I cannot imagine SONY executives and management even considering CRTs right now, I mean any CRT TV they build wouldn't be able to compete with the amount of used CRTs floating around for under $100, business is always about supply and demand, it doesn't matter that CRTs are expensive to build, heavy and toxic or the analog technicians who built it are all dead and gone now.
If there is demand high enough then they will find a way.

If I could buy a new one I would, I would pay $500 USD for a brand new Trinitron any size doesn't matter much but I think 23" is perfect.

For $500 I could also get an OLED but OLED's are sample and hold technology so perhaps I could also get a RetroTink 4K CE? that thing can output scanlines at 4K and these days you can get 4K OLED 32" Monitors for $400 or less although those are 60hz ones.

But would it truly match the quality of a CRT when playing retro games?

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