What Boombox Are You Cranking Up Right Now??

Valde

Member (SA)
Hitachi time! The one on the right needed full restoration to come back to life, the one to the left looks like it's never been used or even taken out of the box. Not a scratch, only some small spec's of dust:clap: My wife always asking why I got all these different boomboxes (and piles of other audio equipment). My answer is that they sound different.. For these two, probably the sound is the same, but they look different :yes: DSC_0590.JPG
 

PostEnder

Member (SA)
Right you are, Valde. And in the meantime, that TRK-series Hitachi of yours is chillin’.





Uh, where exactly in Norway is it hangin’ around in that photo’? In Oslo, the capital? Or maybe in Bodø, inside the Arctic Circle? And, to begin with, what model of Hitachi is that? A TRK-8180? And was that actually a Bee Gees jam – “Fallen Angel” – from their 1993 album Size Isn’t Everything that I first heard from an ‘8180 minutes ago in a FunMaster YouTube video? The Shazam app’ in my smartphone seems to think so.





Thanks for sharing.
 

PostEnder

Member (SA)
Just now I've been cranking Nena ,99 luftballons on Philips D-8614. I am pleasantly surprised by its beautiful sound and rather deep bass ....View attachment 51626
At first I was going to post a message asking: “Huh? Am I missing something? Where’s the name-brand badge of that electronics firm based (I think) in The Netherlands? Who un-badged that unit?”





But watching the brief December 2016 YouTube clip of the Philips D-8614 posted by another website member, Nick Eccles in the UK, I don’t have to start thinking that Philips D-8614s were made with visually subdued name-brand badges. Yet we can’t really suggest that there was too much shadow in play when pauly in Slovenjia took the photo’ of his single-cassette-deck, analog-tuner ‘blaster, can we?





Yes, the bass of that 1980s sound system is commendable – presumably even without any modding by way of updating the speakers. I don’t know if Mr Eccles modified the speakers of his D-8614. Maybe he did; if so, he likely would have posted a long-scrolling topic of it all, complete with at least a dozen characteristically large, clear photos before and after he did the restoration. (He certainly has some skill at repairing certain yesteryear electronics. Thanks for him sharing that video.)





According to the Shazam app’, the refrain of the Basic Element song that was being played by Mr Eccles’s stereo in that video clip were somewhat salty: “You just a damn old b***,” etc. LOL (And I’m sure the male lead singer didn’t mean the one female member of the band when singing that song, “The B***”)





I had to re-watch both the YouTube clip of the Hitachi TRK-8180 I watched earlier today and the clip of Nick Eccles’ Philips D-8614 to realize that only the ‘8614 seems to lack a LINE IN switch that the user could flick on to have audio from a separate source (like an MP3 player) play through the portable’s speakers. It seems that Philips didn’t regard that model of theirs as upscale enough to have a bit more circuitry (and an extra microchip or two) to support LINE IN functioning that didn’t need the PLAY or the RECORD key of the cassette deck – along with the PAUSE button – clicked in place to use the AUXILIARY feature. Then again, that model has a fair number of push-button functions: at least 16 or 17. Maybe by then in electronics history Philips didn’t have the engineering know-how to add a push-button LINE IN switch to a boombox. (Shrug)





Ah, well, enough digressing. Thanks for sharing.
 
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PostEnder

Member (SA)
Having a play with this General fully serviced and all working...
View attachment 51840
Thanks for sharing this clear image, docs. Of course, as I suspected one seeing this photo’ of yours, this here largely unfamiliar General boombox is an AKA of a Citizen JTR-1292, which I posted a message about in July 2015 on the PocketCalculatorShow.com website – a message that I rediscovered minutes ago LOL. (Be undiscouraged by the fact that the image on that older, seemingly neglected website might not show promptly when its webpage loads; clicking on the outline that the image occupies should generate it, on a separate .JPG webpage. The image probably won’t be large to you, seeing that first- and second-generation digital cameras were used to take such images. Or similarly old, computer-linked scanners were used to upload them.)





After a string of the same sort of frustrating misfortunes that I’ve had with other boomboxes (strangely, frustratingly misbehaved cassette-deck mechanisms across six or seven sound systems early in December 2020, like my JVC RC-M50JW), I was close to calling it a day with even leisurely playing my handful of boomboxes, let alone trying to get any more. Who needs a scarily revisited reminder of the grief? (And, yes, other distractions were at play.)





But seeing that apparently pristine JTR-1292, its two shortwave bands and all (in a photo’ maybe over 20 years old LOL) had me thinking: I just might have it in me to actually play audiocassette music again, not just think about doing so.





Again, thanks for sharing. Enjoy good, clean music with it.