GE Model 3-5253A Boombox
 

Hello Everyone today when I was at work I found sitting on the shelf on the floor an early 1980s GE AM/FM/FM Stereo/ Cassette Boombox Model 3-5253A which I'm thinking might possibly be one of the Cassette player equipped Superadios but not sure. I have some pictures of it posted below. The reason why I suspect it might be a Superadio (even though it doesn't say it on the radio anywhere) is because I did see the Superadio chip in the tuner section of the radio, and it does have an extremely sensitive tuner and it has a switch on the back marked "Oscillator" and then its marked "A" and "B" and then on the top it has a switch marked "Stereo Accent" with an "on" and "off" position, which sounds like something that would of been on the Superadios.

Any assistance with identifying this Boombox and its approximate age would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Levi

That's not a Superadio, just a run of the mill boombox from the mid 80's. I'd say '84-'86.

Its not mid 1980s because it has the unpolarized cord, which was gone by 1985, this Boombox has to be early 1980s and its not just a "run of the mill" Boombox because it has features on it that wouldn't be on a normal Boombox, plus the Tuner is extremely sensitive which most boomboxes from that time period that I've worked with have at best mediocre tuners that can barely pick up radio stations from 30-50 miles away on the FM Dial let alone anything on the AM Band, and this Boombox picks up 3 radio stations that are between 30-60 miles from me like they're in my back yard.

There are several "Superadio boomboxes," (same AM-FM tuner section as the Superadios), but I don't believe yours is one of them, CC. However, a number of GE boomboxes from the 80s had excellent AM reception. I still have a mono boombox Superadio; I gave another one away to a friend.

To determine the date of manufacture of a 70's-80's GE product, look for the Date Code sticker in the battery compartment. It will have a 4-digit code; the second digit is the last digit of the year. You know it's made in the 80's so if the second digit is 3 (for example) the year would be 1983.

Source: http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/...p?f=4&t=179177

Just what is the "superadio chip?"

We worked GE Audio warranty from 1979 to about 1990. I saw TONs of Superadios - portables, clock radios, and yes, the one boombox (which also had the VHF TV bands on it, the dead giveaway). Never saw a "Superadio Chip" in any of them - just the early Murata narrow-band ceramic filters, an additional IF stage, or the GE EA33X367 IC (a Sanyo LA1201 variant GE used).

I still have the GE Audio parts guide, with the cross from GE Audio part number to manufacturer number. Thomson expanded it to include VCR/TV, but ruined it by dumping all the older RSXXXX and EA stuff - they kept only the EW part numbers (which are also shared with GE/Hotpoint, a real pain, as they duplicated part numbers across both lines, without coordination between Thomson and GE/Hotpoint)....

Well the date stamp is 5429 so it seems it might of been made in 1979, so a lot earlier than I thought it was.

The "Superadio Chip" that is being referred to here is a chip that contains the whole tuner except the front end, that's what everyone is referring to as a "Superadio Chip" and everyone on here seems to agree that they used that tuner chip on other higher end radio and boomboxes besides just the "Superadio" models.

Not to skew off topic but I have a GE Clock Radio Model 7-4880A with direct radio freq entry which has great selectivity and sensitivity on both bands.

I Know about that one, I used to have that one myself, but then the pushbuttons died (they were no longer responsive), so I had to get rid of it. :tears:

Picture? Sure to be a rare one, as GE used transistors/JFETS for the RF amp, and the LA1201 for the IF/Oscillator, with bandswitching either by mechanical switch or a transistor-based switching arrangement.

The LA1201 was in many other products from Sanyo/Fisher, GE, and even a cheapo Pioneer tuner I have. The variants included a Narrow Band variety (used in the superadio and the Pioneer tuner) and others with less performance. A look at an ECG or NTE manual and you'll see all the variants cross to the same (wideband) NTE/ECG part, hence the insistence by GE to use their EA33X367 - the narrow band was key to the Superadio. I can think of only a few times ever replacing the chip - most of the warranty stuff was open power transformers, open emitter caps in the audio (.47uF 16V Rubycon Electros) and the odd switch pad on the Superadio clock radios - the carbon soft touch switches would fail.

We did a booming business in the antenna arena - EA83X### part-numbered antenna rods. The GE line of 1978-79 "Silver/Gray" military-looking radios had some cheapo antennas that we must have replaced a dozen or more of - the Russell replacements were all too thin in diameter, so we had to use the GE antenna rods. In 1984, GE started rebadging Sanyo boomboxes, as Sanyo used mostly Fisher-branded stuff outside of Japan. We'd get the year's service lit, with GE labels applied over some of the cover pages - the preliminary data was all Sanyo, and a month later we'd get the final GE manual with the GE EA or EW part numbers instead of the 13/14/16 digit Sanyo part numbering. On some parts, we'd order from SFS and get them faster or cheaper than through GE - a pleasant benefit of having the preliminary service lit....

Cheers,

Well go talk to some of the other guys who replied in this thread, NOT me, I was only going by what the others said in their posts on my threads concerning this and my GE "Fidelity I" clock radio which was where everyone on there said that they thought that maybe my "Fidelity I" clock radio might share the chipset in common with the Superadios but not necessarily any of the other circuitry that made the "superadios" what they were. That's all I'm saying.

No, the second digit of the date code is the last digit of the year. 5429 --> 1984.

Sorry I misread what was being said. :sigh:

Oh man, I've got two of these.

Nice! Its probably one of the best boomboxes I've ever used reception wise, and I've monkeyed around with several boomboxes over the years that people have given me to, work on and what not. I'm planning on using mine for if the power ever goes out during a storm I can just run it off of batteries and still hear the weather, or the radio in general.

Maybe today, I'll dig them out of storage and get pics and model numbers. I've had them for about 2 years. Found them in an old house that had been sitting for over 20 years.

Cool, can't wait to see them! :yes: :D

Sorry it took longer than I figured. Got em out today. Model 3-5252 C and 3-5251 A.

Yours look like higher end models than mine if I remember right me and my music therapist did some research and found a boombox collectors website that was complete with values of the different various models and the one model you have the 3-5252 C is actually worth about $75 I guess according to that collectors website mine wasn't even listed in their archive. I can't remember the name of the website sadly enough, but I'm sure you could find it on your own, without my help with the help of Google. it appears that both of your boomboxes have tuning meters on them or maybe even power meters?

Strange considering yours is the next model after. The meter is rec. level/tuning/battery. Seems to be a 3in1 deal. I'll try to find that site.

Was it

http://www.stereo80s.com/bbx.cfm?id=953

No, I think it's this your talking about.

http://www.boomboxes.com/boombox-price-guide/

Yours should have a similar price considering the 3-5254 A is around 70.

What is a music therapist ?

look it up. Its a person who works with people with disabilities or other issues to learn things like coping skills and relaxation techniques etc, through the medium of music.

Yes, that's the site we looked at. There were some boomboxes (of other brands besides GE) that were valued at over $300 or more.

Yes, I noticed one for $995.:smoke:

I found this while searching on Google. I used to have a GE boombox way back about 1980 or so. It fit the description above. That unit got lost over the years and I'm now looking to find one. It had AM/FM only, no cassette; was rather large like the boomboxes of that era; and had a "WIDE" switch that gave the audio a somewhat airy sound when enabled. I used that radio for night time broadcast band DXing when I was in the service. I don't have any pictures of it, nor do I have a model number. Can you offer any clues that would help me in my search? Thanks.

But the compoments from isnide... where they are made?