Do not forget though that not all CRTs were made the same. There was a huge variation in dot pitch, or even the "subpixel layout" (think Trinitron). Also, not all CRTs had nice black levels; either the screen still reflected/scattered a lot of ambient light, or some CRTs just had a black offset level that ensured even fully black pixels still emitted some light, or a combination of both. Phosphor decay times also varied.

The graphics cards themselves also mattered, RAMDACs aren't perfect.

>The pixel glow and deep blacks are just locked behind the glowing phosphor technology.

What deep blacks? CRTs didn't have them; "black" was really gray. You can see it yourself: go find an old CRT monitor, make sure it's powered off and you have a reasonable amount of ambient light for normal viewing conditions, and look at the screen. It's gray, not black. That's as black as the screen gets. Now try the same with any modern OLED screen; the off state is much darker.

> deep blacks

I have never agreed with the supposition that CRTs have deep blacks. The "black" is clearly gray and it was always very noticeable to me when watching CRTs in a lit room. This is one of the things that appealed to me about LCDs in the first place.

In a pitch black room maybe CRTs have better blacks than LCDs (but even then there's CRT glow!), but LCDs have better blacks in a lit room, which is a far more likely scenario for me. Consequently since the beginning of LCD use I've always thought of them as being more vibrant with better contrast.

One thing you can do on a CRT that is difficult/impossible to simulate on an LCD is proper vector graphics. Vectrex games have a really cool glow to the lines as do arcade cabinets (Star Wars / Asteroids / Battle Zone). I wonder how closely OLEDs can mimick that.

> The pixel glow

Can be decently emulated with more modern shaders that rely upon HDR, provided your HDR monitor is bright enough, which most are not. My display can do a reasoable job with 1600+ nit peaks, and 1200 nits sustained. OLED's are not really capable here due to a lack of ability to push and sustain decent brightness levels. You'll also want 4K, in an ideal world, 8K would be even better, but we are where we are.

> deep blacks

CRT blacks were really not that deep unless you're sitting in the dark and there is nothing else on the screen. It also depended upon model, coating etc. Even in perfect scenarios, contrast in mixed scenes was "meh" at best.

> High resolution OLED can come close

So far my experience is that it can not, as it's simply not capable of the brightness required, but it does offer nice blacks yes and better than LCD motion (though just barely due to sample and hold.)

I'd say the biggest remaining issue honestly is the motion blur inherent to sample and hold. As close as the more advanced shaders are getting today, it all falls apart when the image starts to move. Retroarch supports BFI, but its not as useful as it sounds for various reasons sadly.

For now, I retain my broadcast CRT's, but I do hope to get to a point eventually where I could get rid of them. Though I suspect by the time such a technology arrives and is useful, i'll be old enough that i'll probably have stopped caring.

My GF would love me to give up CRT's as I have a room full of them which she tolerates, but hardly loves :|

OLED cannot make my eyes red and burning even after 24 hours of looking at the screen. We need something better to emulate CRTs properly.

Side note that vector displays have yet to be emulated adequately but my mind could be changed by a high quality HDR OLED maybe...