Hunting The Glow: Inside the Secretive World of CRT Hunters

(Yes, people really pay $2,500 for a stack of old TVs. Welcome to the cult.)

If you thought nostalgia peaked with vinyl records and Polaroids, meet the new disciples: CRT hunters. 

These are the folks who will drive four hours with a stranger, rent a truck, and wrestle with glass-and-plastic relics that weigh as much as your first car — all for a glow no OLED can mimic.

Shaan Joshi, a game developer and writer from central Florida, opened the door to this world the way most of us open a cookie jar: with excitement and zero shame. 

He paid $2,500 for 10 cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs on eBay — but these weren't ordinary living-room sets. 

They were professional video monitors, PVMs, the industry-grade beauties broadcasters and hospitals once treated like crown jewels. 

“Being tapped into the scene gives you a pretty good competitive edge,” Joshi says. “If you know enough people.”

And yes, Joshi did know enough people. 

After his purchase he got a private message: “Do you want to go split on this stuff?” 

Four hours, one rented truck, and a friendship later (“We immediately hit it off,” he recalls. “We chatted the whole way down about what sets we had, our favourite monitors.”) the haul was home. 

He now estimates he “probably amassed between 40 and 50 Sony PVMs,” and has even calculated maximum working hours for each one — “until I die,” he says, deadpan.

Why all the fuss? 

CRT tech dates back to the 1890s and produces an image through electron beams and phosphor dots. 

The result is a warmth, a shimmer, a tiny imperfection called personality. 

For retro gamers and pixel purists, that personality is everything. 

PVMs are prized because they have the connectors and the color rendering to make 30-year-old consoles look arcade-like. 

“Some people prefer to watch contemporary TV shows on an old CRT,” Joshi notes — because if you’re going to revisit the 1990s, do it properly.

There’s an entire economy built on keeping these dinosaurs alive. 

Steve Nutter, a CRT repairer and YouTuber in Virginia, says, “I've serviced about 65 of them so far this year for people. Mostly PVMs,” charging roughly $600 for a resurrection. 

He remembers a dumpster-dive era when studios tossed them out like yesterday’s props. 

Those days are gone, and scarcity makes the hunt feel a bit like treasure hunting for people who accidentally enjoy voltage.

Then there’s the ritual: the startup “zap.” 

Byron McDanold, moderator of the CRT Collective (240,000+ members), sums it up with the solemnity of a monk lighting incense: “You push the button on the front and it makes that zap, pop noise as it turns on.” 

It’s part sound, part incantation — and entirely un-recreatable, says upscaler maker Mike Chi: “You just can't recreate that glow.”

Still, not everyone wants a bulky cabinet shoved into the living room. 

Mike Chi’s company sells RetroTINK upscalers that let flat-panel owners simulate scanlines and color bleed so you can play your NES without rearranging your furniture. 

He’s sold “thousands” of devices, proving the market loves compromise almost as much as it loves authenticity.

Pop culture helps too. 

Bella Roberts, a UK content creator, bought a £20 CRT and TikTok’d herself setting it up to watch Stranger Things. 

“It’s mad,” she said after the clip hit nearly two million views. 

And the academics are here for it: Andrew Przybylski, professor at Oxford, confesses he and his family watch The Simpsons on a CRT “as God intended.”

Game developers get spiritual about it. 

Billy Basso used a Sony PVM as a reference while making Animal Well, tweaking graphics to emulate the soft scanlines and bloom of a real cathode-ray tube. 

“I had a Sony PVM in my office at the time that I was kind of using as a reference. I love the look of it,” he says.

Is there a downside? Sure. 

You’ll sweat hauling a 60-pound set, repair bills add up, and some CRTs harbor hazardous materials. 

But the community, Joshi insists, is the real payoff. “The friendships I've made are honestly the best part,” he says. “I could care less, in many ways, about the monitors. If I just had one, I'd be happy.”

So yes, the world contains people who would rather wrestle a giant glass brick than stream in 4K. 

For them the CRT isn’t obsolete tech; it’s a living artifact, a glow-emitting time machine, and a way to make every Pokémon sprite feel like a small, pixelated miracle!

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