Nearly a week ago,I saw this 3-piece box advertised on Ebay by Skillphil. As he is no more than 20 minutes away, I was intrigued enough by the box to do a BIN .When you can forgo shipping charges,you can often times take a chance without it hurting the wallet too much.Though it appears to be styled after a mini-compo type box,I wasn't expecting a whole lot as it is a Realistic.As I expected only it's two speakers separate. Recently I have acquired a rather new condition SCR-8 and I was interested in comparing the two.
Since I happened to be going to Tampa that evening,it was only a few hours between my score on Ebay and taking custody of the box. Arriving shortly before 5pm,I found "Skil" to be as cool as he always is
.The box to my surprise was also about as new as you could ever hope to find!Though very good quality it was lighter than I expected.In fact my SCR-8 has the edge in weight though it is a one piece box.The 3 piece 800 would appear to be a slightly later design maybe by only a year or so.It has the on/ off switch integrated into the "Tape" position of the function switch.This became standard practice for many boxes in the last half of the '80s when cost cutting ramped up in a big way.The deck appears to have never been used.It's as though someone gave this box as a gift and it sat unused in the same place for over 20 years.
My new Modulaire-800 certainly passes the LOUD test! There's plenty of volume headroom to spare.It would seem to have an edge on the SCR-8 in this way. One thing I noticed right away was a neutral balance to the boxes sound.Bass is very similar to the SCR-8s.It's adequate but not abundant. I really wish both of these boxes had the long throw woofers of the SCR-8s brother,the G.E. Blockbuster.Those wanting bottom weighted sound will be left wanting.
I was very pleased with the presence of the highs from this box.They seem better than the SCR-8s though this could be the fact that its equalizer offers more control than the older unit's pots.You will notice the slight dip of the 1K slider on my EQ settings.While listening to MP3s through its line-in,this adjustment became necessary as the mids were a bit bright.Contemporary radio also required this setting.Curiously,playing an old tape allowed me to set the middle slider to neutral.The decks sensitivity and loudness proved this to be a new media problem as the deck seems in factory new condition.Perhaps its because this box was voiced for analog sound when it was designed.Digital music seems to bring out the mids more to my ears than tunes from older analog sources (records,tapes).This box sounds wonderful with rock and 80s synth pop but those liking newer dance music would likely find themselves reaching for another box.I can also say this for the SCR-8.They are very similar sounding boxes.
Old school sound to me was all about excessive volume and good presence of mids and highs.Bass was certainly also important,but its not a defining character of it for me.Bass has continued to receive attention and priority by designers through the years.Both the 3-piece Modulaire 800 and the older SCR-8 are very respectable classic boxes in an old school way.If these boxes only had woofers that move more air,that would cover all the bases .I really couldn't ask for more than that from a boomer.
nice congrats,some of these realistics are very underated 
