hate to stronger word or is dislike better ?

[BENDYCAT]

hate to stronger word or is dislike better ?

was having a look at boxes on ebay, going through the same style looking box for sale at the same price - my eye some time is caught by a Grail coming up - jvc 550 has just popped up and i would really love one, but again the price and the distance in price is too much !

so it got me thinking, we all say there is a list of under 20 boxes that we would all love to have in a collection - now i would of said about 10 but that list after about 5 would differ to certain members

now standard boxes are every where, and if you look on ebay you will see what i mean - the same boxes that don't stick out cos of there design or ability to give the best sound.

So now is there a box that you consider a Grail that you don't like the look of ? sound maybe a different thing as some time we can put up with a grail not being the best or what we consider it should be up to or against other

are we to believe that all the top 20(ish) Grails are so wonderful that we don't care if they are not to out liking, but just to have in our collection

so any Grail boxes that don't float your boat or you don't mind being hidden in the back ground of a photo shoot if you had to do one

????


cheers B :grim:

 

[-GZ-]

Not a fan of the sanyo big ben.
im sure it sounds great....but i just dont like the way it looks. Id get one if i could buy it for $100.... but at its asking price...id rather get another m90 or c100

 

[stormsven]

I ve sold/traded my 777, 767, M920, VZ ....... because i dont like em without LEDs And Max have 100% DIBS if i found somewhere on the wild M90 or WX-1 (i was damn close to have one ) they are NO keepers for me. I prefer to have my LED boxes and enjoying em. Dont give a dime for what is known grail. Its most important that i like em . In any hobby or passion the diversity of people taste is best part and fun IMO. Its going to be damn boring to have just top 20 grails and thats it, some will say- "great collector" but i prefer to be no named and to have my own boombox heaven from boxes i love.
Great tread dude .

 

[BENDYCAT]

that's fair and i guess my point - i have a m70 but find it a bit bland compared to my 9494 - love the sound of it, but not saying i hate it, it's just not on top of my eye candy boxes that i love looking at

I know there are some lesser boxes that we all have but do all the Grails do it for you ?

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

Interesting Thread.....

I think the fact that....

1) There are SO many radios that were manufactured back in the day by SO many companies that everyone's "Eye Candy" is going to be different. We are Incredibly lucky in that regards!

2) Because of personal tastes "Grails" are in the eye of the beer holder! Your Grail may not be my Grail and that alone is worth price of admission into this hobby.

3) Personal limitations, be it money, spouses, space or any other number of factors continue to guide allot of us down our own little paths of collecting.

With all that said....while surfing eBay / Yahoo.jp, this site and others....my personal taste has grown / evolved into a more "Open" taste for radios and I think today, there is more of a chance of me buying / wanting a radio that a few years ago would have been WAY OFF my radar!

 

[Reli]

Not a big fan of the GF-777/999, because they are not symmetrical......They have a line in the middle of the box which divides the two mesh grills.......And that line doesn't line up with the edge of the tape deck.

Life is too short to like everything......you gotta pick your battles and be selective. Be true to yourself......Be tru to tha game.

 

[rustoleumbloodstream]

Not a big fan of the GF-777/999, because they are not symmetrical......They have a line in the middle of the box which divides the two mesh grills.......And that line doesn't line up with the edge of the tape deck.

Life is too short to like everything......you gotta pick your battles and be selective. Be true to yourself......Be tru to tha game.

hahaha youre ocd but yea i actually enjoy the symmetrical boxes more than the others for the exact same reasons i love symmetry and im pulled more towards boxes that were designed with in mind.

 

[Gluecifer]

We all have what we like and don't like, as Chris said, we were spoiled with a decade of models produced by many different companies who actually tried to do and add new features to separate themselves from the others (unlike todays copycat market).

Like Sven's LED fetish and Reli's symmetry fetish we all have things we like and don't like about radios that SHOULD be the real deciding factor of whether we want them in our respective collections or not, and it shouldn't matter if we don't like 777's or C100's, as it's our individual collection.

The concept of a grail is just a fabrication by others, what is an actual holy grail is up to the individual. My ultimate personal grail is a Philips threepiecer that I used to have in the 80s. Does this make every one else want one? No. Does it mean I want and highly value any other Philips threepiecers? No. There are, of course, unifying grails, the one's most of us want, mainly due to their pop culture history. I for one am attempting to collect all the boxes from the Breakin' movies and whenever I see a box associated with an artist or movie I'm a big fan of I add that to the list as well. Do I collect based on the quality of sound as a deciding factor for every radio I collect and value? No. I've got lots of radios in my collection that I love to bits that sound atrocious. Of course I do also love great sounding boxes too, but if a radio is chrome, buttons and graphics and sounds like a pair of headphones turned outwards I'll still hunt and make efforts to acquire one and prefer it every time to something that sounds good but isn't as gaudily designed. I define gaudy as beauty and cheese as quality, so my collection is dotted with radios that often get perplexed looks from other collectors when they visit, this also explains my love affair with the DiscoLite.

There are more than a few boxes that I've seen reviewed on here that are astounding soundwise that I've got no ambition to own. This isn't to say I wouldn't enjoy one to have in the collection just for the sake of it if one fell in my lap, but I'm not going to go out of my way to get one for the sake of having something other people like that I don't see the magic in and I'd rather see someone else own that model who really enjoys it. I say this a lot, but collecting what you like as opposed to what others say you should like is the real key to building a collection you'll value and truly enjoy.

For instance, a while back Chris TRC-920 posted a Yorx model he received through a friend. A real low calibre cheaply made gimmicky box. And I instantly fell in love and eventually bought one from Norm Super Duper. The pleasure that little radio gives me is equal to most of the big 'grails' in my collection and I love it to bits.

I think it's that real 'fall in love' instant when you see a radio you've not seen before, or one that you see so often you lust after it. Like many, I'm still finding new models I'm falling in love with that I want to eventually own, but there are quite a few radios out there that get massive kudos from collectors I wholeheartedly respect on here that I know I'll never have in my collection. And I'm cool with that.

A final note too, every time I get a new box (EVERY time) I look for it's symmetry and think of whether it meets the Reli Standards Of Symmetry or not, and I ususually get a good chuckle thinking how pissed off Reli would be by some design choices. Love your work Reli, you're an absolute champion.



Rock On.

 

[rustoleumbloodstream]

i agree i have a few smaller boxes that sound all right but not the greatest and i got them based strictly on look like what i feel a boombox should look like they just have the beauty to em for example the sony cfs-65s one of my personal favs from my collection just because of the look alone.

 

[jaetee]

We all have what we like and don't like, as Chris said, we were spoiled with a decade of models produced by many different companies who actually tried to do and add new features to separate themselves from the others (unlike todays copycat market).

Like Sven's LED fetish and Reli's symmetry fetish we all have things we like and don't like about radios that SHOULD be the real deciding factor of whether we want them in our respective collections or not, and it shouldn't matter if we don't like 777's or C100's, as it's our individual collection.

The concept of a grail is just a fabrication by others, what is an actual holy grail is up to the individual. My ultimate personal grail is a Philips threepiecer that I used to have in the 80s. Does this make every one else want one? No. Does it mean I want and highly value any other Philips threepiecers? No. There are, of course, unifying grails, the one's most of us want, mainly due to their pop culture history. I for one am attempting to collect all the boxes from the Breakin' movies and whenever I see a box associated with an artist or movie I'm a big fan of I add that to the list as well. Do I collect based on the quality of sound as a deciding factor for every radio I collect and value? No. I've got lots of radios in my collection that I love to bits that sound atrocious. Of course I do also love great sounding boxes too, but if a radio is chrome, buttons and graphics and sounds like a pair of headphones turned outwards I'll still hunt and make efforts to acquire one and prefer it every time to something that sounds good but isn't as gaudily designed. I define gaudy as beauty and cheese as quality, so my collection is dotted with radios that often get perplexed looks from other collectors when they visit, this also explains my love affair with the DiscoLite.

There are more than a few boxes that I've seen reviewed on here that are astounding soundwise that I've got no ambition to own. This isn't to say I wouldn't enjoy one to have in the collection just for the sake of it if one fell in my lap, but I'm not going to go out of my way to get one for the sake of having something other people like that I don't see the magic in and I'd rather see someone else own that model who really enjoys it. I say this a lot, but collecting what you like as opposed to what others say you should like is the real key to building a collection you'll value and truly enjoy.

For instance, a while back Chris TRC-920 posted a Yorx model he received through a friend. A real low calibre cheaply made gimmicky box. And I instantly fell in love and eventually bought one from Norm Super Duper. The pleasure that little radio gives me is equal to most of the big 'grails' in my collection and I love it to bits.

I think it's that real 'fall in love' instant when you see a radio you've not seen before, or one that you see so often you lust after it. Like many, I'm still finding new models I'm falling in love with that I want to eventually own, but there are quite a few radios out there that get massive kudos from collectors I wholeheartedly respect on here that I know I'll never have in my collection. And I'm cool with that.

A final note too, every time I get a new box (EVERY time) I look for it's symmetry and think of whether it meets the Reli Standards Of Symmetry or not, and I ususually get a good chuckle thinking how pissed off Reli would be by some design choices. Love your work Reli, you're an absolute champion.



Rock On.

There's some wisdom in those words....

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

Wise words from Rick for sure!

It's all a personal love affair one must chase!

BTW Rick, I didn't know you got that Yorx from Norm! AWESOME MAN!

Now where's your TRC-920?

 

[Reli]

A final note too, every time I get a new box (EVERY time) I look for it's symmetry and think of whether it meets the Reli Standards Of Symmetry or not, and I ususually get a good chuckle thinking how pissed off Reli would be by some design choices. Love your work Reli, you're an absolute champion.

What can I say, my dad's side is German, and Germans tend to have a very logical, stoic, orderly outlook on things.

This might surprise you, but I actually love boxes with grafitti art, even though it's not symetrical. In fact grafitti art is a good way to mask the design flaws of a poorly-designed box.

More Official Reli Standards:
1) The area with the speakers must be taller than the area with the controls......This is why I don't like GF-555/666 very much.....They look top-heavy.
2) Each speaker should ideally have a distinct, silver ring around it.....Bonus points if they have cool rivets or screws. That is why the GF-9292 is so pimp.
3) Knobs are superior to sliders. Sliders are more difficult to manipulate, in my opinion.
4) Tape windows should have as much glass as possible, to provide maximum view of the cassette (unlike the Crown 850 )
5) LED meters should have more than 5 segments, they should be visible across the room, and they should be VU based, not volume/power based.

 

[thebeardedlady]

Interesting thread!

Im still relatively new to this and being that I never owned a boombox back in the day (I was born 88) then I cant really comment on sound. The boxes I've bought so far are based purely on looks. It was because of the look of the boxes that I started collecting!

I dare say though that as time goes on and I've heard numerous different boxes that my views on a grail will change as I start to appreciate the sound more.

 

[restocat]

Nice thread.

I dont really enjoy the style of the M70. I grew up with too many feather touch controls back in the 1980s, so the buttons on top just dont do it for me.

Boomboxes that open fast with a 'ca-chunk' are also less desirable. Perhaps that is why I like the National RX-7200 so much, it has a 2-stage opening system..it comes straight out, then slowly..wait for it...wait for it...angles down to receive a cassette.

 

[restocat]

Another offshoot topic that has been eluded to is that over time, trends change, desires change.

I would guess that the grail list has changed over time, and new ones will be added in part based on trends of the day. Large conions are IN now, for example, but the mini's are gaining ground, especially the high end feature rich models. Boomboxes with TV's may make a huge comeback someday, once most of the average tube tvs have all found their way to the trash bin.

I'm not holding out for a comeback of the 8track boomboxes, though.

 

[BENDYCAT]

Strange as i have a better love of all mini's more than most bigger boxes - i can look at most minis' and really like them all - i can pick and choose between the bigger ones - mini's hold a strange love - they don't always have a big sound, but to carry them around is cool

is there a bad mini out there ? - has to have twin speakers and one or two decks - no 90's for me

 

[rustoleumbloodstream]

the panasonic mini in the last pic is dooope i really digh that thing i will have to find one.

 

[BENDYCAT]

great sounds out of it - cool looks - mini grail stuff