Aperture Grille Monitor Question

"Loren Parker" <editor335.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:vi1lak75har13a@corp.supernews.com...
 > This week I replaced my 19-inch Iiyama Vision Master 450 with a
refurbished
 > 21-inch IBM P260 that I scored on eBay for $250. Unlike the Iiyama, the
IBM
 > is an aperture grille monitor with a Trinitron tube and a flat screen. The

Hi Loren,

I have the Iiyama 450 Vision Master Pro at home, and I'm very sure that this
monitor has a trinitron/diamondtron tube and therefore classifies as an
aperture grill monitor...
It also has the two damper wires, you can spot the vertical lines of the
grill, and the tube is as flat as it can be.
So unless you had a different one, your comparison seems incorrect.

 > flatness is terrific, but I'm not quite satisfied with the sharpness.

I've never been totally convinced by the sharpness of any CRT. My Iiyama 450
is great, but not perfect like a TFT. There's always problems with the
signal purity too (in my case at least), so I always see some jitter under
some circumstances.

Things I played with on my Iiyama before settling in the quality of the
output were horizontal and vertical convergence and the moire settings.
Setting moire to anything other than zero makes the screen 'jitter' to some
extend, ending up with fuzzier text (and also no moire, that's true).
The convergence I set by just looking at the effect. Remember the default
settings and experiment. See what a setting does to the corners of the
screen. Because what you describe as colored characters definitely sounds
like misconvergence of the red green and blue, which can be fixed to some
extent with these controls.
The Iiyama also had a 'landing zone' config, which was able to solve
discolored area's on the four corners. That might help too.

The above goes for the Iiyama, but maybe the Sony is different. I don't
know.
Perhaps you haved a chance of comparing your screen to another one in a
store somewhere? Try to figure out what makes it better: config, video card,
cables, resolution and (also!) refresh rate (my iiyama has different
sharpness at different refresh rates).

Good luck,

Edo<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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You´re right.AG crts produce inline striped tripels,while conventional crts´
triples are triangles of dots.Small fonts consisting of 1-pixel lines at higher
resolutions look considarably more fuzzy on AG crts,but you can get used to
it...
 >> Stay informed about: Aperture Grille Monitor Question 

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 23:58:59 -0700, "Loren Parker"
<editor335 DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:

 >This week I replaced my 19-inch Iiyama Vision Master 450 with a refurbished
 >21-inch IBM P260 that I scored on eBay for $250. Unlike the Iiyama, the IBM
 >is an aperture grille monitor with a Trinitron tube and a flat screen. The
 >flatness is terrific, but I'm not quite satisfied with the sharpness.
 >Graphics look great, especially at 1600 x 1200, but the text quality doesn't
 >seem as good as on the Iiyama. It's sharp, but not tack-sharp, and at high
 >screen resolution there's a noticeable discoloration of very small fonts -
 >green or brown letters here and there. So I've fiddled with the display
 >controls. Geometry and color balance are fine, and I've tweaked the
 >convergence as well as I can, not knowing anything about it. I've also
 >degaussed it. Is the fuzziness that I think I'm seeing simply inherent to
 >aperture grille CRTs? What can I do to improve the situation? Thanks to
 >anyone who can offer some wisdom.
 >

Loren:

What I see:

VGA1: 21" ViewSonic P817 shadow mask
VGA2: 22" ViewSonic P225f aperture grille
Both desktops at 1600x1200 32bit 85Hz
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
WinXP HE SP1

Text: Better by a large margin on the shadow mask. Very noticeable.
Colour: Better over-all results on the aperture grille but not nearly
so pronounced a difference as what I see with text. I should say here
that although the P817 is older It is better grade of monitor IMO than
the P225f.

I much prefer shadow masks but ViewSonic (and EIZO I hear) seems to be
phasing out their high quality SM models

Happy trails,<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Aperture Grille Monitor Question 

On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 14:48:03 -0400, Fleabus <Xrflynn.DeleteThis@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

 >Text: Better by a large margin on the shadow mask. Very noticeable.

Bullshit. Some of you people must have some crap monitors, 'cause
their just ain't a difference that's significant, in quality monitors.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Aperture Grille Monitor Question 

On 25 Jul 2003 23:40:42 GMT, themroc.RemoveThis@aol.com (Themroc) wrote:

 >Small fonts consisting of 1-pixel lines at higher
 >resolutions look considarably more fuzzy on AG crts,

No they don't.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Aperture Grille Monitor Question 

When shopping for an economical new monitor I did find that it was harder to
find a cheap ag monitor that had sharp text. But they are out there, and
text can be just as sharp as a sm monitor. I'm using an NEC fe700+ that has
razor sharp text and excellent colour, the only drawback is low refresh
rates above 1024 resolution, and, if it bothers you (it doesn't me) the
damper wires.
Always buy the monitor you see, not the same model that is in a box. I
found quite a wide iq range inside of the same models, though again I do
shop for lower priced units. This NEC is still the best crt display I've
ever seen at any price though, and I've never seen a shadow mask with text
as sharp as this.

Mike

"Fleabus" <Xrflynn DeleteThis @sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:jl58iv0kaqnmgaol905lustmle574vm14p@4ax.com...
 > On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 23:58:59 -0700, "Loren Parker"
 > <editor335 DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
 >
  > >This week I replaced my 19-inch Iiyama Vision Master 450 with a
refurbished
  > >21-inch IBM P260 that I scored on eBay for $250. Unlike the Iiyama, the
IBM
  > >is an aperture grille monitor with a Trinitron tube and a flat screen.
The
  > >flatness is terrific, but I'm not quite satisfied with the sharpness.
  > >Graphics look great, especially at 1600 x 1200, but the text quality
doesn't
  > >seem as good as on the Iiyama. It's sharp, but not tack-sharp, and at
high
  > >screen resolution there's a noticeable discoloration of very small
fonts -
  > >green or brown letters here and there. So I've fiddled with the display
  > >controls. Geometry and color balance are fine, and I've tweaked the
  > >convergence as well as I can, not knowing anything about it. I've also
  > >degaussed it. Is the fuzziness that I think I'm seeing simply inherent to
  > >aperture grille CRTs? What can I do to improve the situation? Thanks to
  > >anyone who can offer some wisdom.
  > >
 >
 > Loren:
 >
 > What I see:
 >
 > VGA1: 21" ViewSonic P817 shadow mask
 > VGA2: 22" ViewSonic P225f aperture grille
 > Both desktops at 1600x1200 32bit 85Hz
 > ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
 > WinXP HE SP1
 >
 > Text: Better by a large margin on the shadow mask. Very noticeable.
 > Colour: Better over-all results on the aperture grille but not nearly
 > so pronounced a difference as what I see with text. I should say here
 > that although the P817 is older It is better grade of monitor IMO than
 > the P225f.
 >
 > I much prefer shadow masks but ViewSonic (and EIZO I hear) seems to be
 > phasing out their high quality SM models
 >
 > Happy trails,
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Aperture Grille Monitor Question 

"Loren Parker" <editor335.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:vi1lak75har13a@corp.supernews.com...
 > This week I replaced my 19-inch Iiyama Vision Master 450 with a
refurbished
 > 21-inch IBM P260 that I scored on eBay for $250. Unlike the Iiyama, the
IBM
 > is an aperture grille monitor with a Trinitron tube and a flat screen. The
 > flatness is terrific, but I'm not quite satisfied with the sharpness.
 > Graphics look great, especially at 1600 x 1200, but the text quality
doesn't
 > seem as good as on the Iiyama. It's sharp, but not tack-sharp, and at high
 > screen resolution there's a noticeable discoloration of very small fonts -
 > green or brown letters here and there. So I've fiddled with the display
 > controls. Geometry and color balance are fine, and I've tweaked the
 > convergence as well as I can, not knowing anything about it. I've also
 > degaussed it. Is the fuzziness that I think I'm seeing simply inherent to
 > aperture grille CRTs? What can I do to improve the situation? Thanks to
 > anyone who can offer some wisdom.

I've used P260's without seeing any of the problems you relate here-
although it's true you won't have truly 'tack-sharp' text at high resolu-
tions with and average AG monitor, like you can get with a good shadow
mask. That is the tradeoff between the two- SM's have slightly better text
and fine-line quality at high res, whereas AG's generally have brighter
and more vibrant color.

As for your particular monitor and its quality problems... eBay, amazingly
low price... what more need I say? All that is cheap on eBay, is not neces-
sarily a good deal. Caveat emptor. A lot of lower-quality, damaged, and
lemony goods end up getting dumped via eBay, for very attractive prices.
-Marshall<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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