Sony KV-27FS100

2002.

I acquired this beautiful TV while taking a haul out of my local YMCA. I cleaned them out of all the CRTs they had and seriously saved them a LOT of money from the goofy recycling company that they received a quote from…. Free wins every single time. Two flopped and I had to Recycle them myself but out of all the tubes i landed THIS girl was thankfully in FANTASTIC condition. Aside from a few scratches on the plastic bezel around the speakers and the front buttons being damaged (they hide behind the little door anyway) she was and is absolutely MINT. 

The manual and the original remote were SEALED inside the factory packaging with warranty cards and the works. The only thing missing was the original box! This TV had a rough competition when I got her home. She had to compete against a JVC D-Series AV-32D303 and a KV-32FV27 and this KV-27FS100 SURPRISINGLY won the battle for being crowned my main retro gaming Television. I'm glad I made the choice I did. I saved space in my game room for smaller tubes and my computer collection as well as not risking a total floor collapse. This 27inch tube is FINALLY the largest tube I currently own as of April 2026. I'm done breaking my back and I'm done chasing perfect geometry on these flat Trinitrons. The D-Series was VERY hard to let go of but I'll save that for her own page. When it comes to most of these late Trinitrons, they are a fight. The geometry never quite behaves, the corners curl and the convergence that makes you question your sanity because it FEELS like it should be perfect but never quite hits the mark. They look good from across the room. As for my particular unit?? This is what people think they’re getting when they drag home a massive Trinitron. 

The first thing I did was throw test patterns at her, because I don’t trust anything until I see a grid on that screen. I was happily surprised to see almost none of the previously mentioned issues! 

Here is what really got me going… I use Extron gear in my setup for the PVM. I needed a good way to run my SNES (the only console at the time I was running pure RGB out of the PVM) and I chose to invest in a Retro Tink RGB to COMP. This was the perfect choice and the pictures speak volumes. This Trinitron SHINES with component and S-Video and truly blew me away. She isn't perfect and razor sharp like my PVM (why the hell would you want it to be?) but it treads the line of perfection for a consumer set with ZERO modifications. Movies are fantastic and gaming is exactly what I've described. It's an ideal tube for anyone looking to get intro retro gaming on a CRT….but….

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I got lucky, really damn lucky. 

These CRTs typically run into age-related issues in the power and deflection circuits. Electrolytic capacitors around the vertical output stage tend to drift over time, which can show up as vertical linearity problems, slight fold over at the top of the screen, or a loss of height. The horizontal and geometry circuits can also shift a bit with age, especially on flat Sony tubes where corner correction is already pushed pretty hard from the factory, so you may see minor distortion in the corners or edges. Cold solder joints are very common, particularly around heat-producing components like voltage regulators and flyback connections, and these can cause intermittent power loss or unstable images. The video processing side is usually stable, but EEPROM data can occasionally corrupt, leading to settings that reset or don’t behave correctly. The front button board is another weak point, often failing from wear or physical damage (like mine). 

Overall though, these CRTs are usually very durable on these and tend to stay strong unless it was heavily used with high contrast for long periods. Constant jolts and moving the tube around are not great for these either. These WEGA style sets were meant to be unboxed, placed on an entertainment stand, and then never touched again. Another common issue is minor geometry distortion, especially in the corners, due to the limitations of flat tube design and yoke alignment, which can usually be improved through service menu adjustments or physical yoke correction. Surprisingly I have not touched the service menu on this set once. Although I am very particular about keeping my room dark and running my brightness very low on my CRTs to help preserve them. Maybe it's overkill but if I can placebo myself an extra decade out of a CRT without opening it up I am very ok with that. 

Overall, I rate this set a 8.2/10 for my personal PERFECT use case in my setup as well as the simplicity of the TV. The condition of my unit and the way I use it skew my rating extremely positive as I know this tube could be considered by others as just another back breaking Trinitrons that goofy people charge $1,500 for on marketplace. Please if you take away anything from this page…. Don't ever pay that much money for an obsolete technology. These aren't classic cars, these are e-waste that I obsess over. 

User Manual
Service Manual
BA-5D Chassis Repair Training Manual

Fantastic choice to avoid RGB modding a consumer set!