Wow! What a worthy effort to save this very rare and hot looking box! You guys are lucky to live relatively "close"
Dibs! (fake tweeters and all)! [my emphasis]
By now the astute reader will have noticed that I own three versions of this box. These alone would deserve a thread of their own, since the available information on this unit is limited and incomplete. In short (and possibly in order to contribute to the Boombox Wiki pages):
1) both the two espace L-999 and the Lanico L-818E are variations on the same theme but they are not exactly akas of each other.
2) This said, the version of the espace L-999 featured in the present thread seems to be an aka of the Lanico L-909 (which is not the Lanico I own).
3) There are at least two versions of the espace L-999 (and possibly of the Lanico L-909), the one we restored and the one featured in the last two pictures posted by Chris. I call them the silver and the golden.
The former has silver decorations around the woofers, its grills read "Super Woofer" and it is a cheapish -- though lovely -- unit: keys and buttons are in black plastic, the handle is weak, like the one you find in the Crown/Unisef SZ 5000. Also: on the tape door you read "1. Synchro Dubbing" and "2. Continuous Play". Like the golden version this box is endowed with the high-speed dubbing function.
The latter has golden decorations around the woofers and it is an upgrade or deluxe version of the above: keys and buttons are chromed, the handle is solid, like the one of the TRC 931, but with elegant textured chrome, like many boxes of the later 80s/early 90s (for instance, the Audiosonic TBS 8495), its grills read "Turbo Power". It is interesting to note that the tape doors read "1. High Speed Dubbing" and "2. Continuous Play". The mysterious Turbo Power of this version -- which made me and Chris laugh out loud: what on earth is a "turbo power" feature on a boombox, we reasoned -- is then just the high speed dubbing feature, here emphasized but already present in the cheaper version.
4) The Lanico L-818E, which is in my possession, looks identical to the Riviera PST-1010.The latter is featured in the mercurial homepage of Boomboxery:
5) The Lanico L-818E (a "Super Woofer", not a "Turbo Power" boombox, btw) is undoubtedly the most advanced unit, and as I said not just an aka. It has line-in (Phono/CD), an additional slider for Mic Mixing, two options for the tapes (Normal and Chrome), two for the FM radio (Mono and Stereo), and exhibits sophisticated and uniquely textured tape deck keys.
6) More evidence of the above: the fake tweeters are only on the two espace models (the silver "Super Woofer" and the golden "Turbo Power"), but not on the Lanico, which has real tweeters. While restoring the espace, I and Chris thought of an upgrade and wanted to take advantage of a crap Lasonic L-30 of mine. But we couldn't, despite the fact that the housings of the tweeters are for real and look exactly the same as those of the Lanico. In fact, on the two espace the radio module is conceived in such a way as to prevent the insertion of tweeters -- at least not the standard tweeters for which the lodgement is conceived--, unless some sort of mod is performed on the case.
7) The fact that both the espace and the Lanico share the same shell but inside are significantly different suggests that they may have been produced by the same manufacturer. This impression is reinforced by the circumstance that both the espace L-999 and the Lanico L-909 seems to be exactly the same unit, although in fact they are two different models.
8) It occurred to me that these boxes may have been produced by the Lucky/Lasonic company, or by some associate. I know that the following offers very little evidence to my speculation, but apart from the superficial resemblance of these units to the big Lasonic boys, (notably, in size and for certain secondary details of the design, to the 975) maybe it is not just a coincidence that "Lanico" is almost an anagram of "La(s)onic".
9) To both reinforce my idea -- but at the same time to confuse matters just when we thought that the smoke had cleared: there exists a Lanico L-818E that is not at all the one I have been discussing here, which looks like an aka of the Lasonic L 30. I offer two pictures taken from the net -- but I'd rather end this post here and leave to others the task of unraveling the mystery of two different boxes with the same model number:
