Quote Originally Posted by woodman
First off, it must be said that you might have a good experience with any make or model of set - in terms of reliability. However, there is hardly any such thing as "a sure thing", and with certain brands, your odds lean rather heavily in one direction or the other. Having said that, here's my personal list of sets to consider (and those you'd be better off staying away from):

Yay:
Toshiba
Hitachi
Sharp
JVC

Nay:
RCA
Zenith
Sony
Panasonic
Philips (Magnavox)
any other brand that you've never heard of

The above are based upon more than 50 years of "hands-on" experience with them. Hope it helps you.
With your experience, what do you think about my current problem with a Sharp 32" Standard Tube TV. The RCA female connectors in the back of the TV seem to be weak or cheap and when I connect a cable to them and when if I try to remove the cable, the metal jacket on the female plug gets ripped off. Ever seen anything like that? I am using Acoustic Research cables and some generic cables and while the connections are snug, I don't feel that I am exerting unreasonable force to remove the cables. I have never had this problem with any other component in the past. I have already returned the TV once and now I am thinking about returning the TV again and trying a Toshiba model instead.