Summary

A rather unassuming but surprisingly decent set by Apex. Originally manufactured by Changhong Electric in China.

Literature

• Service Manual
• Owner's Manual

Notes

Chassis is rather cheaply designed with questionable solder quality and capacitor health. Servicing this model may be necessary.

This set uses a rare Toshiba tube model made in Japan. The tube, model A80LTM350X, features a Microfilter coating on the screen that allows for higher light transmission and richer colors. Under certain light conditions, the tube can appear to have a slight violet hue. Yoke is bonded on this set.

Despite the fact that the tube has two focus pins, the flyback that comes with this set is single focus. The schematics for this set are misleading to suggest a second focus adjustment is accessible somewhere, because I didn't see one. I'd say this set would have really benefited with a dynamic focus adjustment, (or just a higher quality flyback) as the corners can be very soft. However, this may not be noticeable during regular gameplay.

By default, the raster is very zoomed-in/overscanned. (See grid photos.) Going into the service menu and adjusting the horizontal and vertical raster size can fix this right up.

This set looks quite good once adjusted. The handling of component is clean and looks lovely after you turn sharpness and VM off in the menu. The only processing this set employs is some annoying red push, but that can be dialed back by lowering color saturation and/or performing a white balance in the service menu. I'd say this set is an underappreciated gem, once you have it in tip-top shape and dialed-in, that is.

Entering Service Menu

The service manual's description of how to enter the service menu is inaccurate. The correct way is as follows:

1. Receive no input
2. Volume to zero
3. Press and hold mute on remote
4. Simultaneously press menu on tv