panasonic rxc c45/52/60 vs sharp qt 37/38/90

[technoir]

Hello

I want to buy a midsize 3 pieces from the mid 80s and those (panasonic rxc c45/52/60, sharp qt 37/38/90) and the sony cfs-9000 are the ones that attract me the most. The sony cassette deck seems quite unreliable and the prices are quite high especially for an european buyer. How do these compare sound wise? What I'm interesting in is a pleasant sound at low/mid level. The panasonic, even the very easily found rcx45 have a good reputation but what about the sharp? What does a newbie like me should know about?

 

[koleloi]

I have not hear the Sony but I have a smaller model with the same cassette mechanism. Of the others, The panasonic win hand down. Especially the RX-C60 is extremely high quality unit with great sound.

 

[stynger007]

The 9000 is like a portable home stereo system. It`s wattage is 22 watts per channel plugged in, on batteries 4 watts per channel (still sounds great) . Servicing this for belts. the challenge is immense. Lots of tiny wires soldered point to point . Flip the deck a few times , and wires separate. When working , the deck is impeccable operation.

 

[technoir]

I'm really enamoured with the looks and form factor of the sony but I don't see myself spending 500 bucks for one, about 6x the price of a rxc-45. To tell the truth I'm a bit underwhelmed by the sound of my FH7 which is like the big brother of the cfs-9000. It's detailed, bright but bass is seriously lacking. Changing the stock speakers to later apm models (from a fh606) improves things but they're bigger (and non stock...) and sound is a bit muted. Maybe was I expecting too much.
That said I bought a german magazine from 1986 where they tested boomboxes and they were not impressed at all with the sony FH5 and FH15. They actually prefered the sound of the cfd5.

That 9000 deck seems even trickier than I thought.

The rxc-60 seems to be the best unit but its look does not win me over.
I guess what I want is a sony cfs-9000 with the sound and reliability of the rxc-60 at the price of a rxc-45, it's that simple...

 

[jimmyjimmy19702010]

The RX-C45 has the low volume deep bass that is so rare in vintage boomboxes. Don’t crank it though as it’ll distort quickly. Most manufacturers avoid distortion issues by virtually eliminating the amp taxing low end frequencies from the sound spectrum.

 

[Radio raheem]

had them all apart from the 45 it's meant to be good.....the sony is the loudest but the bass isn't that warm the 60 is the best sounding of them all but most of them have cap issues resulting in distorted radio or tape sound the 52 is the most feature packed one have several but the sound isn't that great the sharp 90 is not bad either but it's so long since i heard one.....so i would suggest the 60 it is like a small jvc pc5 actually they sound identical but the pc5 is louder hope this helps

 

[technoir]

Thank you guys for you input, it really helps.