Sony PVM-4300

The Sony Trinitron PVM-4300, also known as the KX-45ED1, is a cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor released by Sony in 1989. It is the largest CRT monitor ever manufactured, with a 43-inch (110 cm) diagonal display and a weight of around 200 kilograms (440 lb). Development of the display was finished in September 1987; it was put on sale in Japan in April 1989 and in the United States in 1990.

When documentary evidence of the monitor declined following its release, the monitor became famous among CRT enthusiasts. In 2022, the only known extant unit was rediscovered in Osaka, Japan and acquired by the YouTuber and CRT enthusiast ShankMods.

In the late 1980s, Sony began developing a 43-inch display tube, which was finished in September 1987. The PVM-4300 was unveiled in a 1988 issue of the Japanese DIGIC magazine and in American tech publications, with no official release date given.

Jim Palumbo, president of Sony's Consumer Display Products Co., said that the PVM-4300 was a "positioning statement" with potential to become a standard part of Sony's CRT catalog, even if not many were sold. Workers assembled the monitors by hand.

The PVM-4300 was released by Sony in Japan in April 1989 for an introductory price of ¥2.6 million in Japan. Around twenty sets were imported into the United States around January 1990, with an introductory price of $39,999.99 ($101,463 in 2024). It was described as being aimed at the "videophile and elite-consumer market."

In April 1990, Jim Palumbo reported to the Sun Sentinel that only three PVM-4300 sets had been sold in the United States, although a month earlier he had told the Chicago Tribune that "at least four or five" had been sold.

Following its release in the late 1980s, photographic and documentary evidence of the monitor began to dry up, which, in addition to its limited release, gained it a somewhat legendary status among enthusiasts of CRT monitors.

In October 2022, American hardware modder Shank of the Shank Mods YouTube channel tracked down a functional PVM-4300, one of the last, in the second-floor waiting room of Chikuma Soba, a soba noodle restaurant in Osaka, Japan. The location was to close permanently for demolition only days after Shank's discovery. Shank, with the help of another person and a company involved in shipping of industrial equipment, arranged for the monitor to be shipped to the United States. It was thoroughly tested and serviced upon arrival.