Boomboxes

[Quadra63]

Doesn't anyone collect boomboxes?

[mhardy6647]

sort of :-)

http://audiokarma.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=35052
http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=41825&highlight=sony

[Quadra63]

eBay always has them, but you have to hang around the ending soonest search. Because people usually snatch them up just when you think you are home free. I've lost plenty that way, pissed me off!! But I'm not about to pay $197.00 for a boombox just because it's a JVC. I can't imagine why Lasonics sell for so much, I always thought they were peices of junk, with their cheap looking plastic chrome plate look.

[dr.ido]

I think the Lasonics and simliar fake chrome covered beasts attract those kind of prices because some of those monstrous piles of crap (in my opinion) are featured in some music videos and movies. I guess people want the same boxes they see famous people breakdancing to on TV.

I miss the monster Sony I had years ago. I don't remember the model number, but it has a single cassette deck, AM/FM/SW radio and 10 inch woofers.

I saw a Marantz once that had the same champange gold with wood panel sides color scheme as their full sized components. No idea how it sounded though.

[vertex]

Doesn't anyone collect boomboxes?

Oh yeah...

Have you checked out www.stereo2go.com?

[THOR]

I think it would be cool to buy the biggest flashiest one and keep it looking stock but rig and MP3 player inside of it that would play using the boom box controls.

mmmmmm another of my ambitious dreams that will never see fruition, much like my beer keg speakers :(

[Sandy G]

Someday, I'd LOVE to have an AK "Let's Blow The F*CK Outta Stuff" day at my farm...You boys bring the Boses, boomboxes, etc, I'll supply the beer, bullets & Uzi, FALs AK-47s, etc. Should be jolly good LOUD fun....-Sandy G.

[glen65]

Partial to the Late 70s- early 80s Panasonic and JVC units.
Here's two excellent Panasonic units.

RX7000
RX7700

[kx250rider]

Long ago when I worked at a TV shop in LA, I repaired the MOTHER of all boomboxes (or Ghetto Blasters as we called them)... It was a Taihan or a Kumho, I think. Kind you get new at a swapmeet. It was about 4 feet long, had 2 cassettes, 8-track, vertical phonograph, 12" B&W TV, AM-FM-Police-Aircraft-Shortwave radio, 12 or 14 D-batteries, 15" speakers, horn tweeters, and all! It was a cheaply made, heavily Plasti-Chromed piece of junk. Again; it was a boombox and not a tabletop home unit. all in one piece and designed to be carried around (by Lou Ferrigno or Arnold Schwartzenegger, LOL)... It belonged to a meter maid in West Los Angeles... Barely fit in the back of her metermaidmobile. I think it was made in the early 80s. I had a heck of a time troubleshooting it because, like most of those, it wasnt in Sams and there wasn't any factory distributor to be found.

Charles

[wa2ise]

Here's a web site http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/boombox/ "The Boombox Museum".

[jerryjg]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9712015302&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1 Heres one i got on ebay last week or so. I still havent recieved it. This is the same model as the first boombox/blaster I ever had. I bought the same model about 27 years ago in downtown San Francisco at Macys.I paid 200.00 for it, but I broke it a few years later and threw it out, so now i have the same model again. One day I hope to own the JVC that the other poster put a picture of in his reply. I do have it, I think, but its pretty messed up, so I want one in excellent condition. I have a few nice other ones including one with an eight track. I also have one with detachable spaeakers and more like a portable unit, except its a cross between a portable and a boombox with a handle on top, batterie compartment, and even a built in turntable.

[vertex]

Noticed you got your bbx from a seller in Montreal. I'm amazed at the number of bbx's for sale on eBay from that city. I picked up both of my JVC's, an RC-828 and an RC-M70, from sellers who were both from there. :tresbon:

[koseltri]

I'm lucky enough to own two of what I consider 'holy grail' boomboxes. I never liked the early-style one piece full-length handle type, I like the later detachable speaker, 'Portable Mini Component System' units. My favorite is the JVC PC-55. For a portable, it's astonishing. First off, it weighs 27 pounds. It has a real power transformer, the LEDs on the front panel don't dim on drum hits. It puts out around 25wpc, and it actually seperates into four pieces, speakers (two-way bass reflex with MDF cabinets), amp/tuner/eq (with weighted tuning wheel), and tape deck. The tuner has two SW bands, and muting on/off switch. It has aux and Phono inputs as well. The tape deck has rotating head reverse, Dolby B & C, programmable music search, mic mixing, 'feather-touch' logic control, and a backlit LCD display with VU, 3-mode counter, graphic tape funtion indicators, sleep timer, memory rewind, etc. I don't have pics right now, but here's the link to the auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5876257450&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1

The other one I have is the Yamaha PC-8. It's white and blue on black, is 3 piece, again with MDF speaker cabs, auto-reverse, B & C, search, eq, etc. It isn't as feature laden, but sounds nearely as good as the JVC. There's pics of one on pocket calculator show:

http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/boombox/decline4.html

Anyone own either of these back in the day?

Scott

[pustelniakr]

I have a nice JVC RC-717W, that I got when I was in Germany. Super sound, and it was advertised to have a "FULL 6000 milliwatts of Power!" :D

Rich P

[jerryjg]

I'm lucky enough to own two of what I consider 'holy grail' boomboxes. I never liked the early-style one piece full-length handle type, I like the later detachable speaker, 'Portable Mini Component System' units. My favorite is the JVC PC-55. For a portable, it's astonishing. First off, it weighs 27 pounds. It has a real power transformer, the LEDs on the front panel don't dim on drum hits. It puts out around 25wpc, and it actually seperates into four pieces, speakers (two-way bass reflex with MDF cabinets), amp/tuner/eq (with weighted tuning wheel), and tape deck. The tuner has two SW bands, and muting on/off switch. It has aux and Phono inputs as well. The tape deck has rotating head reverse, Dolby B & C, programmable music search, mic mixing, 'feather-touch' logic control, and a backlit LCD display with VU, 3-mode counter, graphic tape funtion indicators, sleep timer, memory rewind, etc. I don't have pics right now, but here's the link to the auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5876257450&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1

The other one I have is the Yamaha PC-8. It's white and blue on black, is 3 piece, again with MDF speaker cabs, auto-reverse, B & C, search, eq, etc. It isn't as feature laden, but sounds nearely as good as the JVC. There's pics of one on pocket calculator show:

http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/boombox/decline4.html

Anyone own either of these back in the day?

Scott
I have one of these type . Mine even has a built in turntable. Not technically a boombox I think though, more like a cross between a boombox and a mini-system., but since it does have the handle, its ok to call it a boombox allright.

[LBPete]

I've had a Panasonic RX-5050 since it was new. It is pretty basic as far as boom boxes go. Just a cassette and tuner. It has line in and out jacks. Here is a LINK to a picture. (http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/boombox/golden1.html) Sounds pretty good though. It holds 8 D cells and still sounds good.

- Pete

[LBPete]

Here is a Lasonic boombox that just sold on ebay for $810!!! LINK (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9726860679&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1#ebayphotohosting) You can buy a lot of very nice audio gear for that kind of cash. Does anyone know if these things were any good? As a side note, where this guys shop is located would be home turf for a ghettoblaster in LA.

- Pete

[vertex]

There are plenty of Lasonics out there, including the 975. But this one is in nicer shape than usual, in that it has both tape doors, all of it's knobs, and both antennas (a rare thing for lasonics). Unfortunately, in terms of judging boombox quality, thats like saying you're dating someone because they have all of their teeth.

Add to the fact that one newbie bidder unnecessarily drove up the price, and you have a record price.

In terms of audio quality, it sounds like @ss, even for a late 80's boombox.

[LBPete]

A newbie bidder cannot drive up the price alone. It takes at least two bidders. In this case it looks like three were involved.

- Pete

[vertex]

All 3 are idiots. That's a $300 bbox, tops.

[superdeez]

I have a pretty cool Toshiba boombox I got shipped from the UK. Looks to be mid- to late-80s vintage with a 240V/50Hz power input, so I can only run it on D-cells. The main thing that attracted me to it was that it is digital tune and wouldn't be set to tune like standard US radios. The set has 4 bands, LW/MW/SW/FM, and actually gets pretty good reception considering its age and the fact that the antenna base is corroded. More than once I've picked up shortwave broadcasts out of Cuba, and the first time I fired it up I picked up a Dutch SW broadcast. Per EU specs, it tunes AM (or Meduim Wave) in 6KHz increments rather than 10KHz but I still can pick up all my AM stations. I find it amusing that I can tune in "666." It tunes FM not only in even and odd number KHz, but in half KHz increments. (IE, rather than the standard US FM stereo that picks up only odd-number frequencies; 99.1, then 99.3, etc, it picks up 99.10, then 99.15, then 99.20, etc.) It has 5 band EQ, and dual cassette decks with dubbing.

It's the best portable radio I've had since my old Mallory. I miss my Mallory. :tears:

[2DualsNotEnough]

I found a Panasonic RX-5500,and a Sony CFS-99 pretty cheap locally,and each of them sold for over $300 a piece on the Bay.I think a lot of collectors are just trying to recapture their youth,and preserve something,like vintage audio,that might just get trashed or discarded by people who bought something newer and "better".More power to 'em.
Jimmy

[Rockin' Kat]

I own a little JVC PC100 box. It has detatchable speakers and a detatchable tape deck and it's red. Yummy looking... too bad the tape deck doesn't work real well... it sounds pretty nice for it's size and has shortwave reception... I generally pass up boomboxes if they don't have something that makes them stand out to me.

[herbman1975]

I have always kept an eye out for one of those huge, grey, JVC ghetto blasters with the green LEDs. My punk stepbrother had one when we were growing up and I was always super jealous of it - along with his Colecovision game console.

This thing is no hulking JVC, but for $5 at the Goodwill last week I couldn't pass it up...

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/esiefkes/MISC/BoomBox3.jpg

It is a Panasonic, model SG-J500, AND - it plays records?

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b57/esiefkes/MISC/BoomBox1.jpg

I am a child of the 80's, and I don't ever remember seeing one of these... :dunno: Anybody???

[colortrakker]

Not quite like that, but I sure am jealous now that I've seen yours! (Then again, my cousin had not only a Colecovision, but the entire ADAM computer setup! So there!)

[markdi]

my mom had one of those panasonics with the record player - she might still have it.

I have 2 sony cfs-d7 boomboxes

1 is a parts unit

[colortrakker]

Oops...never mind. Now I do have a boombox like that, and I guess I kind of am a collector now.

Back in September I got an SG-J550L, which is the UK version of the J500. Excellent shape - the cassette and turntable both work 100%, and I got the manual too!

And the other day, I apparently made kind of a big score with a Sharp HK-9000. It's black, it's plastic, but most definitely NOT crap. Dig all this:

10-band EQ
alarm clock and sleep timer
Shortwave tuner
1/4" inputs for 2 mics and an instrument
2 cassettes, one with a pitch control and "Auto Program Locate Device"
Inputs for CD and get this...Phono!

This monster is just about 3 feet long and a foot tall. Every livin' bit of it works 100%. I had to think about it for $40 but I took the plunge. Then last night, I found it There (http://cgi.ebay.com/SHARP-9000Z-BIG-MONSTER-GHETTO-BLASTER-BOOMBOX-HUGE_W0QQitemZ320204549417QQihZ011QQcategoryZ48626 QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) with a $199.95 BuyItNow. Uh, wow, I guess? :eek:

[Jeffhs]

I have two boomboxes, both of which have seen better days. The first is a GE-branded unit I bought new in the '80s at a department store, for something like $30 or so. This unit worked well and still works today (I still use it to transfer cassettes to my Winamp mp3 player), except the door over the cassette compartment is broken such that it will not latch, and the eject button on the control panel doesn't work any longer either. The second is a Panasonic which I found in a pile of trash behind my apartment last year. The tape deck and everything else worked fine at the time, although the original batteries had been left in it and had leaked, of course. The boombox worked well on AC, however, until recently when the tape deck gave up; probably just a stretched or broken belt, but I haven't done anything with it yet. Both bboxes are stashed away under my bed, awaiting the day when I feel like working on them again. But since I have a fairly good Radio Shack SCT-11 stereo cassette deck hooked up to my stereo, I'm in no hurry to repair either boombox. One thing that has me baffled is how on earth I'm going to get the Panasonic apart to get at the cassette deck. I have screwdrivers long enough to reach the screws, but somehow I can't get them seated in the screw heads solidly enough to turn them.

Hmmm. :scratch2: If it were not for this setback, I may well have had the Panasonic bb's tape deck working again by now. It's a great-sounding unit and worked very well when the deck was still operating; in fact, it looks as if it is built much more solidly than the GE. :thmbsp: However, I think the GE-branded unit is a rebadged offshore-made piece of junk. :no: The General Electric Company we all knew back in the day wouldn't have turned out such shabbily-made equipment with cheap plastic parts, but the old GE based in Schenectady, New York is no more. IMO, the GE logo and name are being recycled on this offshore stuff probably just to keep them from going into the public domain.

BTW: The same GE whose logo appears on my boombox is the parent company of NBC, which probably explains why the programming on that network is, today, nowhere nearly the caliber of the programming put out by the NBC television network when it was owned and operated by RCA. Darn, GE even did away with the NBC radio network and all of its great programming, including the Monitor Beacon (1955-1975)! No, wait a minute, RCA killed Monitor in '75. GE could not care less about radio, which is why it washed its hands of the NBC radio network almost entirely (except for NBC News Radio) after it assumed control of NBC-TV in 1986.

I apologize for the rant, but having liked NBC-TV and radio so well when they were still under RCA's ownership and control (I am almost 52 years old and well remember the NBC peacock, as well as the TV network's great shows, not to mention the Monitor Beacon on NBC radio), I all but see red when I think of what GE and Vivendi have done to this once-proud network. As the expression goes, today's NBC "ain't your father's TV network!" Unfortunately.

[soundmotor]

Joined the ranks yesterday and snagged a Panasonic RX-5050 at the dump.

I am shocked at how good the sound quality is using an iPod as the source.

This 80's throwback is going nowhere!

[LBPete]

Nice score. If I can find the owner's manual for mine, I'll make you a copy.

- Pete

[jhal]

I just snagged this Panasonic RX-DS45. It is bi-amped and has a CD player on top, and a full function remote. I used to have a Panasonic bi-amped 3 piece boombox, but it was stolen, and this is it's replacement. This unit was sold in the early 90's, as were the other models of the "Platinum Collection". The sound of these is as good as a decent shelf system.

They hold 10 D cells and 4 AA's for the memory. I always ran my other one off of a 12 volt "jumper pack" when I was out and about. It is much cheaper than buying 10 D's at a time, which they love more then a Hummer loves unleaded. The woofers run at 2.4 ohms, and the tweets at 8 ohms, on their respective amps.

Hopefully it will get here in one piece by the end of the week. I will post my own pics when it arrives.

[soundmotor]

Nice score. If I can find the owner's manual for mine, I'll make you a copy.

- Pete

That would be cool and I would appreciate it.

My daughter was immediately curious about the external mike input but I could not get them to activate so I am doing something wrong.

[Arkay]

I think the Lasonics and simliar fake chrome covered beasts attract those kind of prices because some of those monstrous piles of crap (in my opinion) are featured in some music videos and movies. I guess people want the same boxes they see famous people breakdancing to on TV.
...
I saw a Marantz once that had the same champange gold with wood panel sides color scheme as their full sized components. No idea how it sounded though.

You are right that being featured in music videos and such adds to the price/"value" of a boombox. It's not the only factor, though. Size, looks (there are different schools of thought on what "looks good" in a boombox), sound quality (yeah, I know, almost an oxymoron, but it is there comparatively), build quality (again,...), etc... also play a role, plus simply whether it is recognized; whether it is "trendy" among collectors.

Those Marantz models you speak of sound better than most boomboxes. They almost sound like "real" Marantz. I know, because I have more of them than any collector I've ever found or heard of, including guys who have hundreds more boomboxes than I do. :D

Someday, I'd LOVE to have an AK "Let's Blow The F*CK Outta Stuff" day at my farm...You boys bring the Boses, boomboxes, etc, I'll supply the beer, bullets & Uzi, FALs AK-47s, etc. Should be jolly good LOUD fun....-Sandy G.

Sounds like fun! Just wish you lived closer, Sandy - I'd come! If you do it, just make sure you check the boomboxes out on eBay before blasting 'em, though... would be a shame to waste a thousand-dollar "grail" that way, when the thousand bucks could buy a whole slew of unwanted targets to have fun with, or more drinks, or ... lots of other stuff!

I'm lucky enough to own two of what I consider 'holy grail' boomboxes. I never liked the early-style one piece full-length handle type, I like the later detachable speaker, 'Portable Mini Component System' units. My favorite is the JVC PC-55. ...

...the other one I have is the Yamaha PC-8.

Anyone own either of these back in the day?

Scott

Don't (and haven't) owned those, Scott, but they are good models for what they are! I mostly have the earlier, one-piece types you don't like, rather than the 3-piece "mini-compo" types. I see way too many of those to even think of collecting 'em, and they just don't have the same appeal to me. I make exceptions, though, for the Marantz models and a couple of others. :D


I'm planning to sell off dozens of boomboxes sometime later this year. In fact, I'll be clearing out most of my collection, and keeping just a very few favorites. Not sure how many (I lost count of how many I have somewhere back around fifty... now maybe 100?), but I have a lot of ultra-rare and "grail" models, and will sell most of them, too. The money I will put into other vintage gear (probably high-end Japanese-market turntables, my current "obsession". :D ) I just don't have the room and resources to collect everything, so something had to go. It's going to be the boomboxes, along with a lot of mid-fi audio stuff. I'm moving UPmarket in quality with the proceeds, over time, and simultaneously shrinking the physical space my gear takes up.

Boombox collecting can be as much fun as collecting anything else... but not everyone values them that way the collectors do. Most boombox collectors are ten years or more younger than the vintage home-gear collectors, because most people seek to collect the stuff that was "in" when they were young, in a kind of "nostalgia trip". At least it seems that way.

[slow_jazz]

They made some great ones. Here's some of the cream of the crop.

JVC RC-M90

Panasonic RX-5350

Sharp 9696

Sharp GF-777Z

Toshiba - RT-S953

Toshiba - RT-S983

[onwardjames]

I have owned since 1985, a Sharp GF-575 with 35 watts of power. It's beat all to hell, and still sounds great. 10 d batteries of power. Shortwave 1 and two!

Wish I'd taken better care of it, but man does she have some miles!

[zane]

YAY! A boombox discussion.
I got a dozen or so nice ones, now if I had a warehouse....
Minty Lasonic TRC-931 of course, nowhere near as bad as most say.
JVC RC-880JW, Marked JVC model, near impossible to find so I kept it.
Panasonic RF-2200, missing the boom but an AM listeners treasure.
Panasonic SG-675, MIB, early early portable AM-FM Turntable.
etc.. etc..

I collect early portable electronics in general. Walkmans, CD and such.
I have no room to display which sucks,
most of my boomboxes are in the basement rafters.
The lasonic is displayed, it is impressive, grills are metal, guards not.

[Speakerbox]

i still own one of Panasonics last big boomboxes....the dual tape deck cd player, 3 way speakers..with a 4 amp system. it really sounds good

[radiation8]

Someday, I'd LOVE to have an AK "Let's Blow The F*CK Outta Stuff" day at my farm...You boys bring the Boses, boomboxes, etc, I'll supply the beer, bullets & Uzi, FALs AK-47s, etc. Should be jolly good LOUD fun....-Sandy G.

Sounds like a great idea!!!!

All kidding aside, this radio from sony is NICE, has a killer FM/AM Tuner

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7900729&type=product&id=1149206657671

[markdi]

I recently picked up a very minty sony cfd 5 boombox

the only thing I need for it is belts for the cassette deck

does sony still sell a belt kit for the cfd 5 ?

[Hifirob2]

I think the Lasonics and simliar fake chrome covered beasts attract those kind of prices because some of those monstrous piles of crap (in my opinion) are featured in some music videos and movies. I guess people want the same boxes they see famous people breakdancing to on TV.

I miss the monster Sony I had years ago. I don't remember the model number, but it has a single cassette deck, AM/FM/SW radio and 10 inch woofers.

I saw a Marantz once that had the same champange gold with wood panel sides color scheme as their full sized components. No idea how it sounded though.

OK - Old thread, I know, but I had to chime in.

I bought brand new in late 1986 one of those infamous Lasonic TR-931 (was that the model?) that you see in commercials and music videos today. It was on sale for $99, and I bit.

Actually, it sounded GREAT - lots of power, many buttons and inputs, eq, and ate batteries like you wouldn't believe. I regret giving it to my sister years later, as I'm sure it was promptly broken and tossed in the trash. I saw one go for $199 recently - so they are keeping their value.

Man, do I miss that big, poorly built plastic thing!

Rob

[markdi]

I found a source for the belts I need for my sony cfd 5

you could almost build a whole radio

http://www.partstore.com/Model/Sony/Sony/CFD5.aspx

my cfd 5 says 48 watts on the back and it has a 1.6 amp fuse on the 120 volt input.


I also have 2 sony cfs d7 boomboxes

one of my cfs d7s is mint.

partstore.com has tons of parts for them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GViVsyNbNCI

[DecentMan4you]

yes I do
see here
http://www.youtube.com/user/DecentMan4you

[DecentMan4you]

Doesn't anyone collect boomboxes?


yes i do

[DecentMan4you]

They made some great ones. Here's some of the cream of the crop.

JVC RC-M90
well i have 2 of these
Panasonic RX-5350
1 of this one
Sharp 9696
2 96's and 1 9494-recently
Sharp GF-777Z
2 of these
Toshiba - RT-S953
not familiar with this one - is this the one with the remote?
Toshiba - RT-S983
2 of these

JVC RC-M90
well i have 2 of these
Panasonic RX-5350
1 of this one
Sharp 9696
2 96's and 1 9494-recently
Sharp GF-777Z
2 of these
Toshiba - RT-S953
not familiar with this one - is this the one with the remote?
Toshiba - RT-S983
2 of these

[DecentMan4you]

Joined the ranks yesterday and snagged a Panasonic RX-5050 at the dump.

I am shocked at how good the sound quality is using an iPod as the source.

This 80's throwback is going nowhere!

I have one of these and a national version as well

[DecentMan4you]

Doesn't anyone collect boomboxes?

I do

[DecentMan4you]

I have a nice JVC RC-717W, that I got when I was in Germany. Super sound, and it was advertised to have a "FULL 6000 milliwatts of Power!" :D

Rich P

its similar to yours I think

100_2779 17screen
JVC RC M75 W on the fence outside
http://i33.tinypic.com/2lntsfp.jpg
JVC RC M75 W
100_3405 in th grass front
http://i36.tinypic.com/11l3rb8.jpg