Replacement for Diamond Pro CRT.

Soldato
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Currently using a Diamond Pro CRT, which apart from being 4:3, I got no problems with it, however it takes a huge amount of space, and I would like a 16:9 display, if I can get one that is suitable replacement. Last time I looked, I couldn't find one that was not a compromise on something, although that was quite a while ago.

Looking around, it seems to get the responsiveness of a crt, I need a 120Hz monitor, but then these are TN panels and apparently have bad colour and viewing angles.

Not really up to date with monitor tech, so probably best if I just say what I'm looking for and we can go from there. I want:

Same sort of responsiveness as CRT
No input lag
Good viewing angles, doesn't have to be exactly like CRT, but not move slightly to the side and the colours are crap.
Same sort of colour reproduction as CRT (blacks being black etc).

Thanks.
 
What's your budget and what size are you looking for?

Never really thought about tbh, was going to look for one that matches requirements and worry about that later. Got a CRT on desk now, so space isn't really a problem and if it would get me what I want, then I would save/budget for it, although £350ish would prob be the limit to buy right away.

Your requirement is a huge ask. Infact, I would say unachievable with LCD tech as is. Which can you compromise the most on? IQ or Response?

Well that's disappointing :(. So even a brand new LCD is not going to match a CRT that came out 8 or so years ago.

Response is most important, but I'm not going to compromise too much. I see people saying going from an ips panel to the XL2420T for example is noticeable, so I think going from a CRT to that will be as well. Can't say I'd be happy to drop £300+ on a monitor and sit there thinking, "not as nice as the crt".

Doesn't seem right to me. Surely the replacement tech (lcd), should be better than what it is replacing (crt), otherwise what's the point? When they first came out, new tech, gotta mature, but to still be a huge ask, to ask it to match the CRT is ridiculous :(.

Someone should just start reproducing the FW900.
 
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Just been through the same process Armadillo, am using a 12 year old Iiyama VM454, also a diamondtron, and also desperate to upgrade to flat panel tech.
I went with advice from a good friend, he convinced me that current LCD tech was better than my ancient CRT, so I ordered several panels ranging in price from £100 upto £400, TN, PLS + IPS, Asus, LG, BenQ, Dell.
If you value image quality at all in the slightest then you will be hugely dissapointed as I was. I knew within the time it takes my screesaver to activate, 2 mins, to realise I would be sending them back, the ghosting was the total deal breaker for me, its a mess basically in comparison to our beloved CRT's. Everything moves like it's not connected and just a blur across your screen, translate that into gaming and theres just no point in playing I felt, it totally ruined the experience for me, definition and clarity are completely wiped out with LCD's. It felt like such a huge downgrade and the thought of 'How do people actually game on these?' sprung to mind more than once. I called my neighbour in to get his opinion, also a CRT user, and his first words were 'whaaaaaaaa, that's bad!' and that was when I had the BenQ XL2411T 1ms.

Remember when BF3 came out and all the talk of the FXAA Injector thing?, I remember reading on another forum when people were posting comparison screenshots side-by-side and the majority of people saying they couldn't see any difference or only a slight difference at best, I was pointing at my screen and saying how can you not see that!?!?, it's like night and day! Well now I know, it's because majority of people are using LCD's where the picture quality is aweful to begin with so they simply couldn't see much difference.

I have been following the progression of OLED and QLED technology for a while as I hope they might bring back the responsiveness of CRT's that I want before I consider getting a flat panel again. It does sound promising although the tech is atleast a couple of years away yet.
 
i had that monitor around 15 years ago? Anyways no LCD will even come close im sorry to say! And its going to cost you £300-450

Either get 120hz IPS from Korea for the CRT smoothfeeling of high fps and hz.
Get a U2913 Dell for the Ultrawide wow factor coming from 4:3 to offset.


Its going to be image quality over smoothness im afriad TN simply will not even at 120hz compared to that CRT i dont think.
 
Just been through the same process Armadillo, am using a 12 year old Iiyama VM454, also a diamondtron, and also desperate to upgrade to flat panel tech.
I went with advice from a good friend, he convinced me that current LCD tech was better than my ancient CRT, so I ordered several panels ranging in price from £100 upto £400, TN, PLS + IPS, Asus, LG, BenQ, Dell.
If you value image quality at all in the slightest then you will be hugely dissapointed as I was. I knew within the time it takes my screesaver to activate, 2 mins, to realise I would be sending them back, the ghosting was the total deal breaker for me, its a mess basically in comparison to our beloved CRT's. Everything moves like it's not connected and just a blur across your screen, translate that into gaming and theres just no point in playing I felt, it totally ruined the experience for me, definition and clarity are completely wiped out with LCD's. It felt like such a huge downgrade and the thought of 'How do people actually game on these?' sprung to mind more than once. I called my neighbour in to get his opinion, also a CRT user, and his first words were 'whaaaaaaaa, that's bad!' and that was when I had the BenQ XL2411T 1ms.

Remember when BF3 came out and all the talk of the FXAA Injector thing?, I remember reading on another forum when people were posting comparison screenshots side-by-side and the majority of people saying they couldn't see any difference or only a slight difference at best, I was pointing at my screen and saying how can you not see that!?!?, it's like night and day! Well now I know, it's because majority of people are using LCD's where the picture quality is aweful to begin with so they simply couldn't see much difference.

I have been following the progression of OLED and QLED technology for a while as I hope they might bring back the responsiveness of CRT's that I want before I consider getting a flat panel again. It does sound promising although the tech is atleast a couple of years away yet.

Unfortunate and not what I wanted to hear :(.

i had that monitor around 15 years ago? Anyways no LCD will even come close im sorry to say! And its going to cost you £300-450

Either get 120hz IPS from Korea for the CRT smoothfeeling of high fps and hz.
Get a U2913 Dell for the Ultrawide wow factor coming from 4:3 to offset.


Its going to be image quality over smoothness im afriad TN simply will not even at 120hz compared to that CRT i dont think.


£350-400 to not even come close. LCD manufacturers are taking the **** then. This screen is not that old (got in new in box, year or two ago), so I suppose I can wait to see if anything comes onto the market, as I can't see this failing anytime soon.

The whole compromise X scares me. I can't say I'd be happy to drop £300+ and then not have it even be close :(.


I don't understand why we have gone backwards? Tech coming in, has got to be better than what's it's replacing surely? Otherwise what's the point? Just taking up less room and looking nicer than a crt is not a good tradeoff for the picture quality and responsiveness.

Really want to change, but don't want to go backwards\downgrade IQ & response.:(.

This news does not please me :(.
 
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I was the same when I had a unknown 17" CRT make. I have to say I went with a Samsung 226BW at first. It wasn't a bad monitor, but it had a little ghosting in some games - but I could live with that.

What really annoyed me was actually OcUK forums! I'm not criticising the forums for one second - but the consistent blue colour made me realise something. The top was darker blue than the bottom. I'd tried all viewing angles, but nothing really helped. So I lived with it!

That monitor has had new capacitors installed and is used elsewhere.

I now have a Samsung 2233. I've never seen it ghost yet. The dark blue at top and lighter blue at the bottom problem still exists so I just accept it as part of life - it's not so bad on this monitor, I have to admit.

I'm not saying you should go out and buy a Samsung. But buy the best you can afford to try and minimise disappointment.
 
I had a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 930SB 19", my first OC purchase. Also have a 21" at work.

My current Main screen is a Samsung P2450 it's a 2ms response TN panel 2.5 years old. I don't have any issues with ghosting, the first and only LCD that I've not noticed some ghosting. It's my only 2ms LCD.

Colours are pretty good for a TN panel, the CRT was only a little better & blacks are acceptable. Colours aren't as good as an IPS, but I prefer no ghosting to better colours for gaming.
 
I think we all understand the positive and negative points of the technologies now, but I reckon, if you actually used a good LCD on your setup, you would like it ...all in all for most uses it is generally better than CRT tech, the only sticking point there really seems to be these days is in terms of response, which to be honest I don't notice, if you like playing a lot of fast paced fps games though ...you 'might' coming from a CRT, I suspect you would get used to it after a while though. Something you may very well say you shouldn't have do, as it should just be better in every regard ...well perhaps ...but it isn't, as a general visual display unit though ...for most uses and users ...it is. Point is, try it, if you really don't like it, send it back.
 
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All display techs have their good and bad points unfortunately. CRT's had blurry text, terrible geometry issues, were huge, heavy, power hungry and ran hot. I don't think you could get them any bigger than 21 inch really either? Ok, LCD's have issues but I still wouldn't trade my 27 inch 1440p Viewsonic LCD for any CRT. Response times seem fine to me, blacks are acceptable and I don't see any ghosting.

I think we will have to wait for OLED for the next big jump, but even that tech has its issues and will be far from perfect.
 
I came from a Mitsibushi Diamond pro, and when I bought my first IPS 8 bit panel I was pleased with the colour reproduction, the geomoety of image is far better on LCD's and when I looked back at the CRT & it just looked out of focus in comparison, the trade offs were backlight leakage, and input lag, but saying that I got a lot of my desk back, saved energy had a better more precise image, when not looking at black screen. So some things have got better, some worse.

If you are going to replace it, I'd suggest making sure you get a pre calibrated 8bit IPS panel, try and get less than 20ms input lag, and be prepared for some backlight leakage as a trade off when viewing a black screen.
 
lets not exaggerate. most modern lcds will be better. in all ways. (im almost discounting input lag as i doubt you would notice, i dont)

my Trinitron CRT was still only 75Hz or so at max res. not exactly amazing.
 
The Iiyama g2773hs 120hz 27" is fine, angles are not too bad and can be had cheaply, who needs 3d? if you want a really good 27" get an asus with lightboost but thats money. I now have the Iiyama and for twitch gaming its ok but TBH I cant see much difference between this and teh 60hz version
 
Just replaced 5 trinitron 21" screens with 2 27" 2560x1440 samsung PLS , far superior all round, maybe 2560x1600 would be closer to the 21" in pixel size, up to your budget. So impressed, I might get a 3rd.
 
The Iiyama g2773hs 120hz 27" is fine, angles are not too bad and can be had cheaply, who needs 3d? if you want a really good 27" get an asus with lightboost but thats money. I now have the Iiyama and for twitch gaming its ok but TBH I cant see much difference between this and teh 60hz version

Just replaced 5 trinitron 21" screens with 2 27" 2560x1440 samsung PLS , far superior all round, maybe 2560x1600 would be closer to the 21" in pixel size, up to your budget. So impressed, I might get a 3rd.

Too big. Not enough horizontal space on desk for a monitor that wide. I think 23-24 is probably about what can fit comfortably.


lets not exaggerate. most modern lcds will be better. in all ways. (im almost discounting input lag as i doubt you would notice, i dont)

my Trinitron CRT was still only 75Hz or so at max res. not exactly amazing.

Input lag is bad. Rhythm based like rockband are completely unplayable until you calibrate them for display lag. Rhythm paradise on wii is basically unplayable on a lot of screens (no calibration option).

Dropping between Sonic Transformed on here (crt) and lcd on laptop the game feels 'off' I'd guess. The controls don't seem to be as tight. Admittedly I dunno what the lag of the lcd is, but it definitely feels off.

I'm going to mooch another lcd of someone to try, see what that is like.



I came from a Mitsibushi Diamond pro, and when I bought my first IPS 8 bit panel I was pleased with the colour reproduction, the geomoety of image is far better on LCD's and when I looked back at the CRT & it just looked out of focus in comparison, the trade offs were backlight leakage, and input lag, but saying that I got a lot of my desk back, saved energy had a better more precise image, when not looking at black screen. So some things have got better, some worse.

If you are going to replace it, I'd suggest making sure you get a pre calibrated 8bit IPS panel, try and get less than 20ms input lag, and be prepared for some backlight leakage as a trade off when viewing a black screen.

8bit calibrated panel ?:confused:

So confusing. Some say no match, others say lcd ftw pretty much. Have a lot to think about.

Thanks for the help so far. I'm off to have a think :).
 
The only replacement for CRT motion clarity is a Lightboost enabled LCD. Everything else, even 144hz TN is a blurry mess in comparison. Lightboost gives you motion that in some cases can exceed a CRT. There will never be an IPS display with this technology due to the slow response times.

If you want a CRT replacement it'll have to be 2 displays - Lightboost TN for gaming + IPS for colour/resolution/desktop.
 
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