There is a fair contingent of tube-TV afficianados on YouTube. My favorite, a guy named Shango66 does these ghetto resurrections on trashed TVs and if you’re into electronics, it’s actually fairly interesting and fun. He enjoys the challenge of getting old TVs to work when virtually every component in them is either bad or massively drifted in value. He’s very good and he’ll teach you some unconventional troubleshooting techniques, again, if you like electronics. I have seen him work true miracles, talking about fixing some TVs abandoned in an old mining camp, rained on for 20+ years and full of desert dust.
Most of these guys love the old Philco “Predicta” sets, with the separate tube hovering over the TV guts in a cradle and enclosure. which were truly built like crap. Remaarkably low quality builds.
He is the “discoverer”, the “quantifier” of “silver-mica disease” in the old tuned IF sections of radios and TVs. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry about it!
I did this when I was a kid, I hauled dead TVs home from the garbage and tried to fix them. In the process, I learned a lot about electronics, especially video electronics, and later got into a pretty lucrative semi-career in broadcast electronics sales and rentals.
Now, I appreciate his videos because it means I can get my old junk yayas out without having to lift, test, clean, or get shocked by old tube TVs.
And yes, I agree with your 4:3 comment, although, until only a couple of years ago, there was a foreign language station that broadcast NTSC 4:3 in LA.
However, since I have the means to create a true theater experience in my 15'x20' bonus room, I opted for the following:
Video: New 65" LG 4k smart tv. It's like looking through a window.
Surround: Two DefTech front towers with each having 12" subwoofers with frequency and volume adjustments.
One matchingCenter Deftech speaker just under the display.
Two Mirage towers for rear channels that work with proper Surround adjustments.
The DefTech front left and right are Bi-polar as are the rear Mirage.
For those that don't get a bi-polar speaker, it simply means that each tower has the same speakers in the rear as in the front. The trick is placement against a wall or in a corner to get best results for the "depth of sound" effect. Any decent modern receiver can help with that with its Surround check noise generator.
Other than the new display, my Surround system is truly amazing after about 8 years and the reason I never go to theaters.