Living with and using the M90

In previous threads, you have seen the progression of this radio HERE and HERE. From receiving it, to repairing the deck.

So, we are finally on to the best part....USING IT!

First, a quick shout out to Katsa, Superduper, DOCS and Hisrudeness as well as countless unsung hero's that not only brought this radio into my collection, but helped with getting her working.



Since the deck repair, use has been light. Mostly due to traveling, but also due to the fact that we haven't really had anyone to share music with. Evenings have been spent relaxing with my wife watching TV and not blasting radios. But I have popped a few tapes in, exercising the deck.

But I have to be honest with you all. In the back of mind, there has been a CRINGE with every press of the play button, every fast forward and rewind. "Will she jam?" "Am I about to see smoke come out of the back?".

There is this underlying heaviness that its value and the fact that it IS in 100% working condition RIGHT NOW, that using it, breaking it, would just make me both heart sick and scrambling to do another extensive repair.

Which brings me to this weekend. The US Military and NATO are celebrating an early Fourth of July at a place called Carney Park. It's in the caldera of an extinct (we hope) volcano in Naples. It's HUGE and will have all the standard BBQ, 4th of July fun and I thought "This would be a great chance to break in the M90 PROPER!".

So, earlier this week, I dug out my big box o' cassettes to see what would be appropriate. I also decided to make some mix tapes.

Now, through my testing of the M90, playing mix tapes I had made in the past, I was a bit disappointed on the input volume level of the recordings I made. On play back, they have very low meter levels. Not just on the M90, but also on other radios. So, I wanted to see if I could improve upon that.

First, I started going through my old tapes. I did this with both the M90 and Clairtone 7979 (as they are on the shelf, one above the other.)

It was rigorous work for the decks. Pop in tape, rewind to end, auto shut off, push play, test audio quality and condition of the tape, fast forward search to next track, play, rewind, next tape. All in all, I probably ran 50 tapes through bother machines, basically doing the same thing. Very grueling.

And I can report 0 (zero) issues! Both decks performed flawlessly, including the search functions. Speaking of the search function. On the M90, the track number selector for which song to stop on was always a slight bit dodgy. 9 out of 10 times it would quickly jump past the #1 position, forcing you to go around again. But since I have been exercising her, this function has dramatically improved to where it works almost all the time as it should. I'm sure it will keep improving over time ( )

Next was to create some mix tapes, which I did on my Marantz home rack system. Special thanks to Hisrudeness, DOCS, T-Ster, and Nickfish for helping find the best possible settings and levels to create great sounding mix tapes for general playback.

I really forgot how much time and effort goes into mix tapes.

Regardless, I was able to make some really nice mixes, with solid levels on the VU meters, so I'm very happy about that.

So that's it. Later today, with a freshly recharged set of Tenergy D-cells, my trusty checkerboard blu_fuz custom strap and a box of mix tapes, we will walk onto the soccer field at the BBQ, with a 1000 people to do what we do best....

DELIVER THE MUSIC

Yesssssss!!!!!!! Use it or it will definitely break!!! 😃

docs said:

Yesssssss!!!!!!! Use it or it will definitely break!!!

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Yeah, I believe that too. I have a ton of confidence in this radio now. TBH, I think this thing was in such good shape when I got it, that it really wasn't warn out or busted down. It's ready for service now!

Chris representing properly as always!

I wish my M90 worked properly lol

And here she is....delivering the goods!

I firmly believe the joy is in using them, i get so much more joy from taking them out than i do looking at them on the shelves. These things were built to last and we should keep em blasting as long as we can. Good on ya Chris!

Glad to hear your M90 is working at it's full potential Chris. It's a wonderful feeling when they're cranking out the tunes while having a few beers....just like the good old days.

I know what you are saying though. The M90 is such a difficult machine to snag, it makes you always cautious. I think that is normal

AWESOME!!!
Jam on brother!

Spectacular, Chris!! Really great to have a successful journey!

I think people get realllly hung up on the M90 when restoring. I did on mine too.

But after a bit of experience it's actually one of the easiest of all boomboxes to work on as far as the deck goes.

Haha, doesn't help the nerves thinking you'll bugger it up though!

Hope she gives you decades of blasting goodness, Chris.



Rock On.

Good stuff Chris...way to break that M90 in!

T-STER said:

I firmly believe the joy is in using them, i get so much more joy from taking them out than i do looking at them on the shelves. These things were built to last and we should keep em blasting as long as we can. Good on ya Chris!

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I'm there with ya T. Have always enjoyed grabbing a blaster off the shelf and hitting the scene. Will probably always be one of my favorite things to do.

Transistorized said:

Glad to hear your M90 is working at it's full potential Chris. It's a wonderful feeling when they're cranking out the tunes while having a few beers....just like the good old days.

I know what you are saying though. The M90 is such a difficult machine to snag, it makes you always cautious. I think that is normal

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Yep, just like the old days. The people I was with simply have no idea about this culture that we all share. So, (as always) it's not until we arrive and the music starts flowing that people realize that music brings us all together.

skippy1969 said:

AWESOME!!!
Jam on brother!

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Thanks Skippy, this is how we roll

Gluecifer said:

Spectacular, Chris!! Really great to have a successful journey!

I think people get realllly hung up on the M90 when restoring. I did on mine too.

But after a bit of experience it's actually one of the easiest of all boomboxes to work on as far as the deck goes.

Haha, doesn't help the nerves thinking you'll bugger it up though!

Hope she gives you decades of blasting goodness, Chris.



Rock On.

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You are 100% right, these decks are WAY easier to work on than ton's of other machines (insert any Aiwa model here _____ :annoyed: )

The reality appears to be, the common point of failure, beyond belts are those fusible resistors. And with the manual and some help from members on this site, it was way easier than I would have thought. I really had some anxiety about tackling this box, which may have been part of the reason I waited so long to get one. But I'm past that man!

mellymelsr said:

Good stuff Chris...way to break that M90 in!

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Thanks Mel, I still think about your M90 in Vegas, when you turned it up. PUNISHING Extremely impressive. Probably the best sounding M90 / box in general, that I have ever heard.

I do have to add one last point to this story.

THE ANXIETY....

So, we go to this event, you can see in the picture above, it was a full on carnival. Rides, music, food, ect. We were primarily there for the fireworks that would take place at 10pm, but we arrived early at 8pm.

Had chairs, cooler, radio...the works. We were there with another couple and a co-worker of my wife's who we know very well. About an hour in, my wife says "Do you wanna take a walk around?". I replied instantly with "NOPE". She said "Fine" and walked off to see the carnival. I said no, because I didn't want to leave the radio . Mostly, really, The tape was about halfway through and I didn't want it to end while I was off walking around. I had this fear that someone would attempt to flip the tape and FARK something up!

So, after about 10 minutes, I dug out another tape, popped it in, which I knew would give me about 25 minutes to go find the wife, spend 11 minutes of quality time with her and haul arse back to the radio.

The whole time away I'm thinking
"FARK, I hope no one mess's with it ",
"FARK, I hope no one knocks it over ",
"FARK, I hope no one LEAVES IT THERE! ",
"FARK, I hope no one steals it! ".

I was so stressed out about it, I dragged my wife through a quick loop of the event....

"Do you want to get some ice cream?". "NOPE!"

"Do you want to try to win me a bear?". "NOPE!"

"Do you want to go on a ride?". "NOPE!"

All I could think about was the monetary value of that box.

She asked me 5 times, "Can you slow down". I was like "_____, I need to get back to my baby!".

So, I don't know what the take away from all that is, but damn, M90 ownership is stressful

Cool to see the joy you now have for your M-90!!

I love mine and I agree with T-STER.................we should keep em blasting as long as we can!!!

Keep rocking that beast!!

So for next year what is the box of choice? Got to mix it up. Something less precious?

Lasonic TRC-920 said:

I do have to add one last point to this story.

THE ANXIETY....

So, we go to this event, you can see in the picture above, it was a full on carnival. Rides, music, food, ect. We were primarily there for the fireworks that would take place at 10pm, but we arrived early at 8pm.

Had chairs, cooler, radio...the works. We were there with another couple and a co-worker of my wife's who we know very well. About an hour in, my wife says "Do you wanna take a walk around?". I replied instantly with "NOPE". She said "Fine" and walked off to see the carnival. I said no, because I didn't want to leave the radio . Mostly, really, The tape was about halfway through and I didn't want it to end while I was off walking around. I had this fear that someone would attempt to flip the tape and FARK something up!

So, after about 10 minutes, I dug out another tape, popped it in, which I knew would give me about 25 minutes to go find the wife, spend 11 minutes of quality time with her and haul arse back to the radio.

The whole time away I'm thinking
"FARK, I hope no one mess's with it ",
"FARK, I hope no one knocks it over ",
"FARK, I hope no one LEAVES IT THERE! ",
"FARK, I hope no one steals it! ".

I was so stressed out about it, I dragged my wife through a quick loop of the event....

"Do you want to get some ice cream?". "NOPE!"

"Do you want to try to win me a bear?". "NOPE!"

"Do you want to go on a ride?". "NOPE!"

All I could think about was the monetary value of that box.

She asked me 5 times, "Can you slow down". I was like "_____, I need to get back to my baby!".

So, I don't know what the take away from all that is, but damn, M90 ownership is stressful

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I can relate to that Chris.

I mostly take my boxes outside around my home for those reasons but in some ways, I miss taking my good valued boxes out in public. Sadly, around here my experience is that no one outside of our fan group really appreciates and/or knows the rarity/value of what they are looking at. For the most part, the general public sees a vintage box that they assume has a value of 50 bucks and they would treat it as such. So when I factor that into the equation, it takes any positives away from the risk associated with bringing them out. Especially out into a majority of people who probably wouldn't respect and/or appreciate it anyway. Not trying to be a Debbie downer but I have yet to run into a living being outside of this forum that seems to truly appreciate the history and value in preserving and caring about these machines. The best I have encountered around here (once educated) were those who would only be interested in the money and selling it....with no interest in the box itself outside of that. All I hear is "I'd sell it and take the money". I absolutely hate that response because it shows lack of respect, interest and understanding for what I enjoy. Odds are they would buy something they were interested in with that money and in return could turn around and say "I'd sell it and take the money" and buy another vintage boombox .

ford93 said:

Cool to see the joy you now have for your M-90!!

I love mine and I agree with T-STER.................we should keep em blasting as long as we can!!!

Keep rocking that beast!!

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I agree 100%. I'm struggling to remember the boxes I have already restored I try to exercise the decks so the belts don't get flat spots.

Hisrudeness said:

So for next year what is the box of choice? Got to mix it up. Something less precious?

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That's a real good question. This winter, I think I really want to do a hand full of restorations that have been waiting a very long time. First and foremost, I want to finish the C100. I have a replacement lower deck door from Caution which needs to be fitted and all the needed stickers to make it look correct. The deck still has an issue that I will lean on the community to help fix. After that, I have my 1st and 2nd gen 931's that need to be done and I have the makings to build a full on "Shelf Queen" Lasonic TRC-920 (which I am dreading). Then I would like to get into my 777, finish the Perdisco (just needs a new deck motor), JVC 838 which needs the top control panel rebuilt and possibly new amp chips and the list goes on and on.

I have to say DOCS has really inspired me to get more of my decks working. So I may dig deeper into that department. I have to say, having working decks and a proper way to make mix tapes has brought me full circle again.

Transistorized said:

I can relate to that Chris.

I mostly take my boxes outside around my home for those reasons but in some ways, I miss taking my good valued boxes out in public. Sadly, around here my experience is that no one outside of our fan group really appreciates and/or knows the rarity/value of what they are looking at. For the most part, the general public sees a vintage box that they assume has a value of 50 bucks and they would treat it as such. So when I factor that into the equation, it takes any positives away from the risk associated with bringing them out. Especially out into a majority of people who probably wouldn't respect and/or appreciate it anyway. Not trying to be a Debbie downer but I have yet to run into a living being outside of this forum that seems to truly appreciate the history and value in preserving and caring about these machines. The best I have encountered around here (once educated) were those who would only be interested in the money and selling it....with no interest in the box itself outside of that. All I hear is "I'd sell it and take the money". I absolutely hate that response because it shows lack of respect, interest and understanding for what I enjoy. Odds are they would buy something they were interested in with that money and in return could turn around and say "I'd sell it and take the money" and buy another vintage boombox .

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Yeah, it seems the only way to make people snap their mind over from "You have what? and how many?" is to add the monetary value to them. I was introduced this weekend as the guy with "And how many of these do you have?". I always love the look on people's faces when I say 85+. I can tell by their expression that they can't even picture it in their minds. What does 85+ boomboxes look like? I think the first thing that comes to mind is an e-waste drop off center. Just a piles of broken plastic. Old Lexmark printers and CRT monitors . And I have seen some of your guys collections, many look just like that

I'm excited for you to get out and enjoy it.

having had m90's for about 20 years they still amaze me when i use them and i feel a sense of achievement......enjoy that mofo chris

I remember I almost got fired from my job because I used to take my m90 to work and one day somebody moved it and when I found out it was my boss I hit the fuking roof to say the least. That was the last time I took the m90 out in public.

That's an awesome looking box.

JVC Floyd said:

I remember I almost got fired from my job because I used to take my m90 to work and one day somebody moved it and when I found out it was my boss I hit the fooking roof to say the least. That was the last time I took the m90 out in public.

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as you know floyd, i took mine to hospital..people were gobsmacked that the cassette still worked...years ago i took boxes to school work everywhere lad lol