Hey all from a unseasonably hot Sydney, just thought to take a moment to introduce myself. I love 70s 80s 90s chart music, well mastered CDs, and apart from swimming at the local pool in summer, an interest in the solar system, boomboxes have been the biggest part of my childhood.
Parents first got me a national panasonic RX 1750 in 1980. New nothing about tapes back then and I think as it was, ten packs of Super Sonic C 60s and VIVA C 90s were the go. Heads always clogged with junk, and musically, it was Christie Allen, The Doolies, Air Supply, Arabesque (yes they did get played a few times in Australia), Bucks Fizz, The Nolans, Tight Fit, and Dollar, yes, my taste in music was bad, but lots of hapy memories.
After giving up the ghost in April 1982, the Panasonic went into retirement, where then the JVC RC 545 was a "hand me down" from an older brother. Didn't use it much, was busy doing other things that year. Late December 1982, started understanding about taking care with tapes and so forth, so gave the JVC a good clean over, including the heads, and started using TDK ADs, wow, what beautiful tapes. We had a cousin who worked at TDK which helped with getting them at a discount.
By that stage, musical taste evolved into pop and rock, Australian Crawl, Pseudo Echo, WHam, Midnight Oil, Men At Work, Elton John, Billy Joel, Prince, Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zepplin, and the Chisels. Yeah, okay, I confess, yes I do have all of Olivia Newton Johns albums.
Toward the end of 1983, after a family trip to the Netherlands, Father's brother worked at Philips. For one of my other brothers and my birthdays, we both got the Philips D 8514 Powerplay tapedecks, with a five pack of TDK SA 90s.
As soon as we got back to Sydney, taping off FM radio on nice Chrome tapes was a dream come true for a 14 year old. Remember the first track taped off FM radio was Survivor's "Eye of the tiger", follow by some David Bowie, The Vapors, and Irene Cara's "Flashdance". Not having much pocket money though, Maxell LNs and ULs were the way to go, the local grocery store had the three packs for about eight dollars. For what they were, they were still incredibly nice sounding Type 1 tape.
Eversince then, have to say that I've never been able to let go of my D8514. When the original broke, I bought another one off ebay, and still using it to this day, hooked up to my computer. Have my collection of 20,000 flacs playing through Foobar, and still 40 years later it is a nice sounding boombox. The D8514's only drawback is it's terrible transport buttons. The original unit bhack in the 80s was repaired about half a dozen times from snaped buttons.
So hopefully look forward to engaging with some folk on here, and together can listen to some great retro music.
Parents first got me a national panasonic RX 1750 in 1980. New nothing about tapes back then and I think as it was, ten packs of Super Sonic C 60s and VIVA C 90s were the go. Heads always clogged with junk, and musically, it was Christie Allen, The Doolies, Air Supply, Arabesque (yes they did get played a few times in Australia), Bucks Fizz, The Nolans, Tight Fit, and Dollar, yes, my taste in music was bad, but lots of hapy memories.
After giving up the ghost in April 1982, the Panasonic went into retirement, where then the JVC RC 545 was a "hand me down" from an older brother. Didn't use it much, was busy doing other things that year. Late December 1982, started understanding about taking care with tapes and so forth, so gave the JVC a good clean over, including the heads, and started using TDK ADs, wow, what beautiful tapes. We had a cousin who worked at TDK which helped with getting them at a discount.
By that stage, musical taste evolved into pop and rock, Australian Crawl, Pseudo Echo, WHam, Midnight Oil, Men At Work, Elton John, Billy Joel, Prince, Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zepplin, and the Chisels. Yeah, okay, I confess, yes I do have all of Olivia Newton Johns albums.
Toward the end of 1983, after a family trip to the Netherlands, Father's brother worked at Philips. For one of my other brothers and my birthdays, we both got the Philips D 8514 Powerplay tapedecks, with a five pack of TDK SA 90s.
As soon as we got back to Sydney, taping off FM radio on nice Chrome tapes was a dream come true for a 14 year old. Remember the first track taped off FM radio was Survivor's "Eye of the tiger", follow by some David Bowie, The Vapors, and Irene Cara's "Flashdance". Not having much pocket money though, Maxell LNs and ULs were the way to go, the local grocery store had the three packs for about eight dollars. For what they were, they were still incredibly nice sounding Type 1 tape.
Eversince then, have to say that I've never been able to let go of my D8514. When the original broke, I bought another one off ebay, and still using it to this day, hooked up to my computer. Have my collection of 20,000 flacs playing through Foobar, and still 40 years later it is a nice sounding boombox. The D8514's only drawback is it's terrible transport buttons. The original unit bhack in the 80s was repaired about half a dozen times from snaped buttons.
So hopefully look forward to engaging with some folk on here, and together can listen to some great retro music.
