Heathkit GR-25
Overview
The audio press that covered the GR-25 did not treat it as a novelty. Audio (May 1966, p.38) ran a profile of the set and noted that several of its features appeared to make it a far better value than most commercial color sets. The same review said that after a few weeks with the set, the natural tendency to overdrive the color control gave way to softer, more pastel settings that looked more like film than spectacle.
One caveat about the documentation. Heathkit's own advertising in the years that followed pushed newer models - the GR-295 at $449.95 and the GR-681 at $499.95, both with a two-year picture tube warranty - and those ads are sometimes mistaken for GR-25 material. They are not. The period review cited above is the authoritative account of what it was like to own and build.
It is a Heathkit, so the surviving units split between well-built examples and ones that were never quite finished or were assembled by someone who should not have been holding a soldering iron. Restoration is more approachable than with most color sets of the era. A set with a strong, well-converged tube is worth far more than a cosmetically perfect cabinet with a tired CRT inside it.
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