Reluctant CRT owner here. I have one because it was cheapest and easiest way to get a low input lag display for speedrunning. I paid $30 for my 27" Trinitron

Reluctant CRT owner here. I have one because it was cheapest and easiest way to get a low input lag display for speedrunning. I paid $30 for my 27" Trinitron on Craigslist and had to drive a bit to pick it up. It's a monster of a TV, requiring a sturdy rack to sit on and a couple strong friends if I want it somewhere else. The picture quality is great and the scanlines definitely add an old-school feel but it doesn't look better than my SNES Classic on my generic HDTV. It's not that you CAN'T speedrun on LCD displays, it's that it's expensive and inconvenient. Connecting a retro console like a SNES to a modern display requires converting one of composite/S-video/component/RGB SCART to DVI or HDMI, and most of the devices that do that aren't designed with latency in mind. If you search on Amazon you'll find a bunch of cheap knockoff upscalers that, if they even work, add 50ms+ of latency. The cheapest acceptable option is the OSSC, a custom-made upscaler for retro gaming that costs about $200. Many people who built their setups before OSSCs were easily available use XRGB Minis/Framemeisters, which run about $320 and add very slightly more lag. Both the OSSC and Framemeister expect SCART input, so there's some extra cost there for cables/converters. After you buy an upscaler, you'll still need a monitor with acceptable latency after all the extra image processing is disabled. The Melee community uses particular models of Asus monitors that people have checked, but it's difficult to find good information on input lag in general because it's not something manufacturers care to advertise. If you're buying new, figure about $200 for something like an Asus VG245H. Lastly you'll need DVI/HDMI capture and splitting/passthrough. Not an issue if you're already capturing modern consoles, but S-video capture for retro hardware is dirt cheap. A good 60fps HDMI capture setup is easily $100-200. So, overall it costs $500-600 to replicate the CRT experience from a retro speedrunning perspective and the results are a mixed bag - slightly (although imperceptibly) higher latency but higher video capture quality and some space savings. For comparison, my CRT setup cost $30 for the TV, $35 for a GV-USB2 capture dongle and $20 for a S-video/composite splitter, under $100 total. Unless something happens to make low input lag HDMI more cost-effective, expect retro speedrunners to continue using CRTs as long as they're viable.