I recently grabbed a Silver ST-868 relatively cheaply ($74.99 + shipping). Had been sitting in a storage locker for a long time.
I did some minor work to it, lots of pot & switch cleaning, and it seems to work pretty well.
The sound quality isn't bad; far superior to my old Magnavox D8443 and the JVC PC-R11W I purchased about the same time as the Silver. The bass is surprisingly good, and overall volume is impressive. It would be nice if the VU meters were active all the time, but throwing in an old scrap tape and pushing the record button activates them for use while listening to the radio or aux in.
One missing feature that would have been nice is a soft eject mech.
The lighted dial is pretty much a gimmick on this model. Two lights illuminating the top of the scale. They do light it up well enough to make out the pointer location when it's very dark, but that's it. Leaves much to be desired compared to almost all the other boomboxes I've seen with a lit dial.
I think the WIDE mode works really well with instrumental music; sounded really good playing Nick Johnston's "Remarkably Human", but really doesn't work well if there are vocals, it tends to hide the vocal track.
These are great looking boxes, and seem fairly rare. I don't know if that's due to low production numbers, or low quality causing most to hit the landfills in the 80s. The boards seem to be of standard thru-hole construction; I didn't see a single cap that has started to leak or bulge. If I inadvertently bought something that doesn't need a recap ... well, that's not likely to happen.
I haven't inspected the battery box yet. If the D-cell that was left in there since 1982 is any indication, I don't know if I want to look at it.
I have not recorded anything on it, and likely won't. This will probably end up as the listening deck in my basement lab while I'm running HPLC samples. It will probably be the one getting packed into the motorhome for vacations too.
Overall a pretty nice unit. With the cost of anything with the labels 'vintage' and 'cassette' these days, this was a steal.
I did some minor work to it, lots of pot & switch cleaning, and it seems to work pretty well.
The sound quality isn't bad; far superior to my old Magnavox D8443 and the JVC PC-R11W I purchased about the same time as the Silver. The bass is surprisingly good, and overall volume is impressive. It would be nice if the VU meters were active all the time, but throwing in an old scrap tape and pushing the record button activates them for use while listening to the radio or aux in.
One missing feature that would have been nice is a soft eject mech.
The lighted dial is pretty much a gimmick on this model. Two lights illuminating the top of the scale. They do light it up well enough to make out the pointer location when it's very dark, but that's it. Leaves much to be desired compared to almost all the other boomboxes I've seen with a lit dial.
I think the WIDE mode works really well with instrumental music; sounded really good playing Nick Johnston's "Remarkably Human", but really doesn't work well if there are vocals, it tends to hide the vocal track.
These are great looking boxes, and seem fairly rare. I don't know if that's due to low production numbers, or low quality causing most to hit the landfills in the 80s. The boards seem to be of standard thru-hole construction; I didn't see a single cap that has started to leak or bulge. If I inadvertently bought something that doesn't need a recap ... well, that's not likely to happen.
I haven't inspected the battery box yet. If the D-cell that was left in there since 1982 is any indication, I don't know if I want to look at it.
I have not recorded anything on it, and likely won't. This will probably end up as the listening deck in my basement lab while I'm running HPLC samples. It will probably be the one getting packed into the motorhome for vacations too.
Overall a pretty nice unit. With the cost of anything with the labels 'vintage' and 'cassette' these days, this was a steal.
