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  #16  
Old 05-05-2006, 12:43 AM
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LBPete LBPete is offline
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I've had a Panasonic RX-5050 since it was new. It is pretty basic as far as boom boxes go. Just a cassette and tuner. It has line in and out jacks. Here is a LINK to a picture. Sounds pretty good though. It holds 8 D cells and still sounds good.

- Pete

Last edited by LBPete; 05-05-2006 at 12:46 AM.
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  #17  
Old 05-22-2006, 08:16 PM
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LBPete LBPete is offline
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Lasonic TRC-975

Here is a Lasonic boombox that just sold on ebay for $810!!! LINK You can buy a lot of very nice audio gear for that kind of cash. Does anyone know if these things were any good? As a side note, where this guys shop is located would be home turf for a ghettoblaster in LA.

- Pete
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  #18  
Old 05-22-2006, 08:35 PM
vertex vertex is offline
rock on, brother Beavis..
 
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There are plenty of Lasonics out there, including the 975. But this one is in nicer shape than usual, in that it has both tape doors, all of it's knobs, and both antennas (a rare thing for lasonics). Unfortunately, in terms of judging boombox quality, thats like saying you're dating someone because they have all of their teeth.

Add to the fact that one newbie bidder unnecessarily drove up the price, and you have a record price.

In terms of audio quality, it sounds like @ss, even for a late 80's boombox.
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  #19  
Old 05-23-2006, 01:01 AM
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LBPete LBPete is offline
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A newbie bidder cannot drive up the price alone. It takes at least two bidders. In this case it looks like three were involved.

- Pete

Last edited by LBPete; 08-03-2006 at 10:33 AM.
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  #20  
Old 05-23-2006, 01:14 AM
vertex vertex is offline
rock on, brother Beavis..
 
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All 3 are idiots. That's a $300 bbox, tops.
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  #21  
Old 05-24-2006, 02:56 AM
superdeez superdeez is offline
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I have a pretty cool Toshiba boombox I got shipped from the UK. Looks to be mid- to late-80s vintage with a 240V/50Hz power input, so I can only run it on D-cells. The main thing that attracted me to it was that it is digital tune and wouldn't be set to tune like standard US radios. The set has 4 bands, LW/MW/SW/FM, and actually gets pretty good reception considering its age and the fact that the antenna base is corroded. More than once I've picked up shortwave broadcasts out of Cuba, and the first time I fired it up I picked up a Dutch SW broadcast. Per EU specs, it tunes AM (or Meduim Wave) in 6KHz increments rather than 10KHz but I still can pick up all my AM stations. I find it amusing that I can tune in "666." It tunes FM not only in even and odd number KHz, but in half KHz increments. (IE, rather than the standard US FM stereo that picks up only odd-number frequencies; 99.1, then 99.3, etc, it picks up 99.10, then 99.15, then 99.20, etc.) It has 5 band EQ, and dual cassette decks with dubbing.

It's the best portable radio I've had since my old Mallory. I miss my Mallory.
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  #22  
Old 05-24-2006, 05:46 AM
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2DualsNotEnough 2DualsNotEnough is offline
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I found a Panasonic RX-5500,and a Sony CFS-99 pretty cheap locally,and each of them sold for over $300 a piece on the Bay.I think a lot of collectors are just trying to recapture their youth,and preserve something,like vintage audio,that might just get trashed or discarded by people who bought something newer and "better".More power to 'em.
Jimmy
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  #23  
Old 06-11-2006, 04:25 AM
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Rockin' Kat Rockin' Kat is offline
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I own a little JVC PC100 box. It has detatchable speakers and a detatchable tape deck and it's red. Yummy looking... too bad the tape deck doesn't work real well... it sounds pretty nice for it's size and has shortwave reception... I generally pass up boomboxes if they don't have something that makes them stand out to me.
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  #24  
Old 08-03-2006, 04:07 AM
herbman1975 herbman1975 is offline
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I have always kept an eye out for one of those huge, grey, JVC ghetto blasters with the green LEDs. My punk stepbrother had one when we were growing up and I was always super jealous of it - along with his Colecovision game console.

This thing is no hulking JVC, but for $5 at the Goodwill last week I couldn't pass it up...



It is a Panasonic, model SG-J500, AND - it plays records?



I am a child of the 80's, and I don't ever remember seeing one of these... Anybody???
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  #25  
Old 08-03-2006, 08:13 AM
colortrakker colortrakker is offline
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Not quite like that, but I sure am jealous now that I've seen yours! (Then again, my cousin had not only a Colecovision, but the entire ADAM computer setup! So there!)
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  #26  
Old 08-03-2006, 04:15 PM
markdi markdi is offline
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my mom had one of those panasonics with the record player - she might still have it.

I have 2 sony cfs-d7 boomboxes

1 is a parts unit

Last edited by markdi; 08-03-2006 at 04:18 PM.
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  #27  
Old 01-13-2008, 04:58 PM
colortrakker colortrakker is offline
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Oops...never mind. Now I do have a boombox like that, and I guess I kind of am a collector now.

Back in September I got an SG-J550L, which is the UK version of the J500. Excellent shape - the cassette and turntable both work 100%, and I got the manual too!

And the other day, I apparently made kind of a big score with a Sharp HK-9000. It's black, it's plastic, but most definitely NOT crap. Dig all this:

10-band EQ
alarm clock and sleep timer
Shortwave tuner
1/4" inputs for 2 mics and an instrument
2 cassettes, one with a pitch control and "Auto Program Locate Device"
Inputs for CD and get this...Phono!

This monster is just about 3 feet long and a foot tall. Every livin' bit of it works 100%. I had to think about it for $40 but I took the plunge. Then last night, I found it There with a $199.95 BuyItNow. Uh, wow, I guess?
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  #28  
Old 01-15-2008, 12:49 AM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
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I have two boomboxes, both of which have seen better days. The first is a GE-branded unit I bought new in the '80s at a department store, for something like $30 or so. This unit worked well and still works today (I still use it to transfer cassettes to my Winamp mp3 player), except the door over the cassette compartment is broken such that it will not latch, and the eject button on the control panel doesn't work any longer either. The second is a Panasonic which I found in a pile of trash behind my apartment last year. The tape deck and everything else worked fine at the time, although the original batteries had been left in it and had leaked, of course. The boombox worked well on AC, however, until recently when the tape deck gave up; probably just a stretched or broken belt, but I haven't done anything with it yet. Both bboxes are stashed away under my bed, awaiting the day when I feel like working on them again. But since I have a fairly good Radio Shack SCT-11 stereo cassette deck hooked up to my stereo, I'm in no hurry to repair either boombox. One thing that has me baffled is how on earth I'm going to get the Panasonic apart to get at the cassette deck. I have screwdrivers long enough to reach the screws, but somehow I can't get them seated in the screw heads solidly enough to turn them.

Hmmm. If it were not for this setback, I may well have had the Panasonic bb's tape deck working again by now. It's a great-sounding unit and worked very well when the deck was still operating; in fact, it looks as if it is built much more solidly than the GE. However, I think the GE-branded unit is a rebadged offshore-made piece of junk. The General Electric Company we all knew back in the day wouldn't have turned out such shabbily-made equipment with cheap plastic parts, but the old GE based in Schenectady, New York is no more. IMO, the GE logo and name are being recycled on this offshore stuff probably just to keep them from going into the public domain.

BTW: The same GE whose logo appears on my boombox is the parent company of NBC, which probably explains why the programming on that network is, today, nowhere nearly the caliber of the programming put out by the NBC television network when it was owned and operated by RCA. Darn, GE even did away with the NBC radio network and all of its great programming, including the Monitor Beacon (1955-1975)! No, wait a minute, RCA killed Monitor in '75. GE could not care less about radio, which is why it washed its hands of the NBC radio network almost entirely (except for NBC News Radio) after it assumed control of NBC-TV in 1986.

I apologize for the rant, but having liked NBC-TV and radio so well when they were still under RCA's ownership and control (I am almost 52 years old and well remember the NBC peacock, as well as the TV network's great shows, not to mention the Monitor Beacon on NBC radio), I all but see red when I think of what GE and Vivendi have done to this once-proud network. As the expression goes, today's NBC "ain't your father's TV network!" Unfortunately.
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  #29  
Old 06-29-2008, 07:49 AM
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soundmotor soundmotor is offline
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Joined the ranks yesterday and snagged a Panasonic RX-5050 at the dump.

I am shocked at how good the sound quality is using an iPod as the source.

This 80's throwback is going nowhere!
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  #30  
Old 06-29-2008, 10:53 AM
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LBPete LBPete is offline
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Nice score. If I can find the owner's manual for mine, I'll make you a copy.

- Pete
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