Rca = Junk? (1 Viewer)

[Dave_Gib]

Does RCA just sell garbage? Is that how people on this board feel? I have 2 friends with the same RCA DVD player I have, and after a year none of them work. I have heard from people that fix televisions to never buy an RCA. Do they just make garbage, or is my experience with them just an exception?

 

[Jo_M]

The last consumer review I remember seeing said that they had a very bad history with exlectronics.

 

[Joe Szott]

Answer = Yes

 

[DerekM]

I, personally, will never buy an RCA product. IMHO, it's best to save the extra cash in order to buy a quality product - rather than an inferior product made for the basic consumer that doesn't know any better. I used to work for DirecTV, and had to deal with RCA on a regular basis.......and their customer support is atrocious. Again, just my opinion....

 

[Carl Johnson]

About 10 years ago I bought a 25" RCA color television. It lasted for less than six months then it just died on me. Never again will I buy another RCA product.

 

[Brian L]

Recently bought a second DirecTV receiver for the upstairs bedroom. Went to the Circuit City web site, and looked at a cheap RCA receiver they had in stock. CC has a link to user reviews posted at their site.

There were about 25 reviews posted at the time. It looked to me like about 20 were negative. Game over.

Bought the Sony SAT-B65.

YMMV.

BL

 

[Dave_Gib]

I'm so angry about his DVD player, I guess the only way to ease the pain would be to get a new one, not RCA of course

 

[Jerome Grate]

Sorry to hear about your problem. I got a 20 inch RCA t.v./monitor and I thought it was wierd that it came with audio (composite) and stereo in but not out. Anyway, it still works and we had for about 11 years. It resides in the upstairs den, thats next to the kitchen.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Thomson Consumer Electronics has a poor history with product reliability

The one RCA-branded product that has won unqualified support from HT enthusiasts is the DTC-100 digital HD tuner.

Otherwise, avoid. The occasional RCA television might produce a pretty picture, but for how long? Also, the engineers at Thomson are kind of out of touch with what home-theater enthusiasts are into and what they want in a monitor.

 

[Bill Will]

Well so far my Proscan 8086Z DVD player is still going strong & so is a top of the line 1989 RCA TV (used in a spare room but has lots of hours on it) but I would not buy RCA today until they get their repairs under control. It seems like RCA was on the way down as soon as Thomson took it over & after they moved to Mexico their products really went down the drain. Just my 2cents.

 

[DaveGTP]

My coworker here has a RCA DVD player he spent $250 on, we were just talking about it, which died after a little under a year....

 

[Dave Poehlman]

When I was given a DVD player as a gift, and realized I didn't have a TV that I could plug it into without an RF converter (this is before I got fully addicted to this HT stuff), I walked into my local B&M and asked for "the cheapest 27" TV with component inputs" (all I had room for) and the salesman steered me to an RCA. Which I bought.

Of course the salesman tried to talk me into the extended warranty and I said "I've never had a TV die on me in my life, why would I want an extended warranty?"

Well I should have knocked on wood, a little over a year later, the screen went black. I took it into a local shop and it cost me all of $65 to get it fixed. It's worked fine since. I'd have to say, overall I'm satisfied with it. But it is the first TV to actually "die" on me.

 

[dave_brogli]

As you can see in my sig I have a rca hdtv and so far so good.... I have always had good luck with rca branded stuff..... (my bedroom tv is a 10 year old rca thats picture is still marvelous!)

 

[dave_brogli]

oh I guess I dont have it in my sig..... I have a rca 36" hdtv and the dtc-100

 

[Philip Hamm]

Well so far my Proscan 8086Z DVD player is still going strong

So is mine. Also, I have two RCA DirecTV receivers which both work fine. I wonder how those old 36" progressive widescreen sets are hoding up that people were getting from Sam's Club for $800 4 year ago.

 

[Chris Brown]

Well my center channel is an RCA and has worked great since I got it. Would liked to have had a matching front stage but since I’m using some old JBL’s as my mains there wasn’t anything I could have really matched them with. Got a good deal on the center though.

In addition, the 20” RCA TV in my little brother’s room has lasted forever. I remember that’s the TV we were watching the World Series on in ’89 when the big earthquake hit…. And even then it was pretty old. I’d say it’s probably over 20 years old now, and still has the perfect picture going and everything. I think we only ever serviced it once, and that was about 11 years ago. He is just entering the 6th grade, and is still kinda in the phase where he likes to keep the TV on at night so he doesn’t get scared… so it’s ahd to put up with some serious abuse and keeps kickin. My other brother has a 27” RCA that was made in the early 90’s and the only problem we’ve ever had with it has been a fuzzy picture but it got better when we dusted it out.

 

[greg_t]

I stil have several of my old RCA devices, all of which have never failed me. My RCA dvd player, which I bought about a year and a half ago, has NEVER failed to play a disc. The same can't be said for Toshibas. It seems like people expect RCA products to be high end, and for the price, you know they aren't. I for one think RCA products have gotten a bad rap. Again, I have never had a problem with any of my RCA components, but you can't expect them to be high end components.

 

[TomCW]

RCA = Thomson Electronics. They also build some GE stuff and who knows what else. Generally very poor quality. I would never buy anything made by Tomson.
Tom

 

[Jeremy Little]

I for one think RCA products have gotten a bad rap.

Yeah, It's a shame that such a high percentage fails within the first 2-3 years.

My parents bought an RCA console television in around 1991. It was the last console the local B&M had, so it was the one they wanted. It failed at about 13 months in (1 month out of labor on parts, 10 months out on labor) and my mother called to set up authorized service. She pressed the issue about reliability and not only did they send someone out to do the repair very quickly, but also reimbursed my parents for the entire repair. Not TOO bad...

It died again 2 1/2 years later and now they own a 36" Toshiba analog.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

RCA's downfall was the Thomson takeover.
Sorta sad as RCA was once the last word in tv picture quality and reliability.

An anecdote--My elderly neighbor's 8 year old 32" Mits died on him last week.
Another neighbor offered him the use of an old set they hadn't been using for a while until he could save up enough for a new one.

He knocked on my door to ask if I'd help him move the thing into his condo. Went over to get it and it's a huge 25" RCA Console set circa 1975 or so, with tambour doors to cover the screen when not in use, in a really fancy French Provincial bleached blonde wood cabinet. I was envisioning us hauling this monster clear across the complex only to have it blow up on power up or have a faded-to-sepia picture with half the screen blank.

Jockeyed it into position and hooked up the rabbit ears, pulled the power/volume knob to turn it on (this high-end when new set did not have remote control, that's how old it is) and waited. After 30 seconds of warmup, a picture appeared--a quite decent very stable picture with good colors and near-perfect geometry! This tank is a great example of the kind of product RCA used to produce.