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Remember Curtis Mathes?

peterp1 said:
I remember their spokesman: "Curtis Mathis -- the most expensive television in America, and darn well worth it"

Brilliance in marketing -- take a significant negative and turn it into a positive.
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At one time, a Curtis-Mathes was the most expensive RCA CTC chassis money could buy with a generous warranty. As that was what the real set was. Fancy cabinetry too. Good but not that good. A regular CTC same chassis with a RCA Service Company contract was as good a TV set in the 1960's. Then C-M sold rebadged NEC sets.
 
Curtis Mathes 02.jpg

I just sold this amp / tuner combo to a guy off craigslist. I bought it used years ago for my daughter, and then used it for years in our control room at work, and then in my basement workshop. A real workhorse, all I did was replace the output fuses once and deoxit the controls a couple times when they got scratchy. HA 230 amp and HT310 tuner. I couldn't find specs for these, but suspect the amp was maybe putting out a little over 20 wpc. Flouroscan meters were gaudy, but kinda cool in their own way.
 
I saw a pair of Curtis Mathes speakers at a tag sale which were clearly MItsubishi/Diatone. In a moment of good sense, I didn't buy them despite the low price - they were very nicely built and heavy with excellent looking components, but I already had too many speakers, at least one pair being Mitshubishis, and a dubious wife (with ample reason to be so).
 
Brings back memories from the 60’s. My dad was an EE for the phone company, and a ham radio and audio hobbyist who built all of his own stuff. Curtis Mathes was manufactured in Dallas, where we lived, and somehow, through a work buddy, he got his hands on a bunch of discarded CM stereo tube chassis and circuit boards. He built several copies of CM stereo console units with the “Magic Eye” tuning tube. I spent many hours fiddling with that thing and watching the green eye open and close. And it’s hard to remember now, but broadcast FM stereo was brand new, and quite a novelty. We were as amazed at that development as young people are with 4K video today. Ahhh, Memory Lane....
 
Our first color TV was a C-M. 1972. It wasn't a console unit, had a steel cabinet with fake wood grain veneer. Very heavy compared to other TVs.

Nice picture on it, too. First show I watched in color, that I remember anyway, was Star Trek.
 
'Lots of pictures' is an understatement - a huge website with tons of information and illustrations, obviously run by a full blown enthusiast. I was amused at how early on as you scroll down, every thing is described as wonderful, but eventually awesome displaces wonderful.
 
Spitfirejoe said:
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I just sold this amp / tuner combo to a guy off craigslist. I bought it used years ago for my daughter, and then used it for years in our control room at work, and then in my basement workshop. A real workhorse, all I did was replace the output fuses once and deoxit the controls a couple times when they got scratchy. HA 230 amp and HT310 tuner. I couldn't find specs for these, but suspect the amp was maybe putting out a little over 20 wpc. Flouroscan meters were gaudy, but kinda cool in their own way.
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Hey! I'm in Omaha and I currently own these! I just got them from a friend of mine for doing some work on his house, I promise they went to a very good home! Out of curiosity, what speakers were you using with this system? I'm about to buy some so I can hear it for the first time and I'm super pumped
 
Bought a large Curtis Mathes table top tube radio that resembled a German radio in style at an estate sale. Fired it up when once home and it sounded so good I was positive it was of German manufacture. Nope all US.
 
zenith2134 said:
Hi

re: C-M

The slogan was "The most expensive TV and darn well worth it." they were out of TX as I recall.

Many of theirTVs up until the late 70's are collectible. Not because they were indeed 'the best' electronically, but because they mostly had cabinetry which was overdone and over-the-top---ask any vintage tv collector, they were the heaviest, biggest, and among the most oddball in their designs

Basically, collectors either love em or HATE em.
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C-M got rights to clone last year's totl RCA color TV series.
I worked on and cleaned up a botched prior service attempt on an NEC sourced Curt' color portable, very well made/ good performance set.
Afaik, the tube era console stereo sets were not up to or competitive with Ampex or Fisher consoles.
 
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Dark Gable said:
Hey! I'm in Omaha and I currently own these! I just got them from a friend of mine for doing some work on his house, I promise they went to a very good home! Out of curiosity, what speakers were you using with this system? I'm about to buy some so I can hear it for the first time and I'm super pumped
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I used a pair of Advent Laureate tower speakers most of the time. Also used a set of older Bose 301's and a set of Infinity Infinitesimal Fours (with an Infinity sub-woofer). Those were pretty good sounding.

I think the speakers define the sound more than the electronics do. I don't think I ever knew what the output power of that amp was rated at, but it's not a powerhouse. Any decently efficient smaller to mid-size ought to be fine. Half the fun is trying different combinations to see what you like.

All those combinations were speakers I picked up on eBay or Craig's List. They all needed foam surrounds replaced.
 
Nat said:
'Lots of pictures' is an understatement - a huge website with tons of information and illustrations, obviously run by a full blown enthusiast. I was amused at how early on as you scroll down, every thing is described as wonderful, but eventually awesome displaces wonderful.
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I think the guy who runs that site is one of our members.
 
All I remember about Curtis Mathis is that they built some unique TV"S. Some models had a circuit that would automatically mute the sound of commercials. Personnally I have always preferred Sony Tube sets known as Trinitrons. (SP)? They were so much better thn TV's made in the US. I ended with a Mitsuibishi 35" as my last tube TV as the cost of Sony's 43 inch monitor was prohibitive .
 
peterp1 said:
Remember Curtis Mathes? I’m still making payments on my Curtis Mathes TV!!

Those suckers were expensive
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When my wife, then girlfriend, moved in together she had a nice CM console tv but it didn't work. We liked to read a lot so we didn't repair it. After a couple years I figured we should get it going since we were keeping it.

Turns out the tube was shot and we had to wait for one to be shipped from Japan. Expensive, but wanted to get it working.

When we finally got it home we found that using the remote in a certain way would cause problems. If my memory serves me right the remote had the usual buttons from zero to nine, but also a double zero button.

When the 00 was pushed by mistake, the picture and sound would flutter a bit then go black with a small white dot centered in the tube before going completely dark. I accidentally did this one too many times and it killed the tv. We didn't have it very long either.

First time I saw a tv where the remote had a small magnetic nook it was placed in on the front. Push it in place and it sat flush with the front. Give it a small push and it then would pop out to grasp.
 
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