I'd had heard about the Lasonic TRC-931 for a number of years but had never been able to score one.Then maybe a year ago I managed to outbid someone on Ebay. At that point I didn't know much about the chronic switch problems that plague so many of these classics. Arriving,the box proved to have not one but both switches broken.This was...well..."2" bad as the box was close to perfect cosmetically.
A friend of mine tried to help me fix the broken switches.Try as we did,we couldn't figure out a workable solution. Discouraged,the box found a what was to be temporary home in my friends gameroom.This is actually one side of his garage converted to house his '80s video game machines.The box was looking good in this retro room until it hit the floor one day :'-( . This shattered several screw post and cracked the casing. Not wanting to ruin our 23 year friendship,I told him not to worry about the damage. It was difficult, though, to look at after the accident.The box remained at his house atop a shelf overlooking his video arcade.
Not too long ago,I bought an M70 off of Craigslist. The seller was very nice and said he would keep an eye out for any other old ghettoblasters he might find. One day recently while at work,I received a call from this man. He told me he had found a "Lasonic TRC-931" at a garage sale and thought to call me. I raced to the next city to take a look.
Arriving,I saw a beautiful TRC-931sitting in his carport. Upon inspection,I found it to be in fairly good condition. The woofers were yellowed but the case was near perfect. It had functioning decks but was missing the cassette keys. Both antennae were missing. The function switch was o.k. but the band selector switch was broken.It didn't seem to be stuck on any band though. There was no major damage and it was very clean.
For some reason while bargaining with this man he told me he had only paid $5.00 for it ! Since he was honest,I didn't mind him making a healthy profit. Besides his paying only $5.00 for it left a bit of room at the low end to bargain. The price we finally settled on was $60.00 in part to help him pay his rent. He seemed happy and we continued talking. Though he knew next to nothing about boomers,he did remember a "large red Lasonic" blaster with flashing lights from his youth. If such a model ever existed,that's news to me.
A few days later,I took my new acquisition over to my friends house. We went to work scavenging parts from my broken model. We transferred two new condition antennae and swapped the yellowed drivers for a pair of minty white ones. Then we set aside the broken boxes cassette keys and proceeded to open the new box to take a closer look at the switch. Though not repairable,we were able to set the radio to FM. Now it's virtually fully functional. Of course,there's no usable shortwave or AM but that's hardly discouraging.Those bands don't exactly take advantage of a 931's virtuous performance.
So here it is. All I need to do is install the cassette keys to have a complete example of a real classic. For those of you who haven't heard a 931,it's every bit as good as people tout ! It has strong bass and a tight cabinet for one of the more plastic boomers.Though some boxes have more pronounced mids, I will usually use the treble boost setting on my ipod to brighten the mids up on a box anyway.The highs are actually really nice.The 931 seems to entice you to push the volume which will go very loud ! I'm patching in some tunes from my Ipod,typing this message, and feeling on Cloud 9 !
A friend of mine tried to help me fix the broken switches.Try as we did,we couldn't figure out a workable solution. Discouraged,the box found a what was to be temporary home in my friends gameroom.This is actually one side of his garage converted to house his '80s video game machines.The box was looking good in this retro room until it hit the floor one day :'-( . This shattered several screw post and cracked the casing. Not wanting to ruin our 23 year friendship,I told him not to worry about the damage. It was difficult, though, to look at after the accident.The box remained at his house atop a shelf overlooking his video arcade.
Not too long ago,I bought an M70 off of Craigslist. The seller was very nice and said he would keep an eye out for any other old ghettoblasters he might find. One day recently while at work,I received a call from this man. He told me he had found a "Lasonic TRC-931" at a garage sale and thought to call me. I raced to the next city to take a look.
Arriving,I saw a beautiful TRC-931sitting in his carport. Upon inspection,I found it to be in fairly good condition. The woofers were yellowed but the case was near perfect. It had functioning decks but was missing the cassette keys. Both antennae were missing. The function switch was o.k. but the band selector switch was broken.It didn't seem to be stuck on any band though. There was no major damage and it was very clean.
For some reason while bargaining with this man he told me he had only paid $5.00 for it ! Since he was honest,I didn't mind him making a healthy profit. Besides his paying only $5.00 for it left a bit of room at the low end to bargain. The price we finally settled on was $60.00 in part to help him pay his rent. He seemed happy and we continued talking. Though he knew next to nothing about boomers,he did remember a "large red Lasonic" blaster with flashing lights from his youth. If such a model ever existed,that's news to me.
A few days later,I took my new acquisition over to my friends house. We went to work scavenging parts from my broken model. We transferred two new condition antennae and swapped the yellowed drivers for a pair of minty white ones. Then we set aside the broken boxes cassette keys and proceeded to open the new box to take a closer look at the switch. Though not repairable,we were able to set the radio to FM. Now it's virtually fully functional. Of course,there's no usable shortwave or AM but that's hardly discouraging.Those bands don't exactly take advantage of a 931's virtuous performance.
So here it is. All I need to do is install the cassette keys to have a complete example of a real classic. For those of you who haven't heard a 931,it's every bit as good as people tout ! It has strong bass and a tight cabinet for one of the more plastic boomers.Though some boxes have more pronounced mids, I will usually use the treble boost setting on my ipod to brighten the mids up on a box anyway.The highs are actually really nice.The 931 seems to entice you to push the volume which will go very loud ! I'm patching in some tunes from my Ipod,typing this message, and feeling on Cloud 9 !
The Lasonic is a far better bass machine. 
