heh - youse guyses might enjoy this (vintage boombox, of sorts)
 

On the scrap metal pile at my favorite local vintage audio emporium :-) a couple of weeks ago. It's been de-toxing in the garage since then. Today - a rainy day in MA ('til a little while ago) - was a good day to try it out.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...boxboombox.jpg

It's in poor condition - but it actually works OK. Controls are scratchy (imagine that?!). The tape deck doesn't seem to work... but the radio's fine. I noted with some amusement that it has SW as well as AM and FM.

I just couldn't resist it when I saw it in the muck and mire of the scrap metal pile. What a piece of... umm... history... :-P


best of all, it had a very nice quality Maxell 110-min metal cassette in it. I am actually listening to it as I type this (on another cassette deck, of course). 1950s doo-wop/pop standards kind of stuff. Odd fodder for a boom box.

Cool find!

Just yesterday I was thinking about the Sanyo boom-box I had in the mid '70's and wondering where I might have stashed it. It wasn't as big as some of the later ones, but it sounded pretty good and was loud enough to hear in a busy machine shop.

This thing is attache-case sized :-P

Yeah, I remember those. It's from the 80's when there was a resurgence in SW interest. FONY had some with SW on them too.

I have a purchased-new (ca. 1983) JVC portable with SW... but it is much less -- assertive -- than this Maggotbox.

I have an old JVC with CD player on top of it all. And a Superscope job I bought new back around 1980. I don't use either.

SW ?!? How does it do in comparison to MY ol' Bacon-fryers ? May have to Shit-Can 'em all now...(grin)

All this talk about boomboxes begs the question: Just how BIG did they get?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...s_box_1987.jpg

I had one about that big....maybe it was bigger. It was about the size of the main unit of one of those 70's radio-phono-tape all-in-one table stereos.

Unless one was either an Idiot, or a Masochist, I would think trying to balance one of those accursed HARD-EDGED, heavy things on one's shoulder 'twould be a mite uncomfortable..

When I was in the service business I was repairing a VERY LARGE boom box. It was probably twice the size of that one in the pic. Amazing! It had been dropped (well, duh!) and I had to order many structural parts. Never finished the job, as I couldn't get everything needed, but the customer understood. She picked up the unit and paid me for the parts I did get, and left with a smile, the broken unit and a sack of parts.

Almost never carried mine it was heavy enough that I doubt I could have gotten it up on to my shoulder, so the handle was the transportation method of choice (when a car(t) was not available). I only had it for a year or two until I sold or tossed it in a move when I was 12.

Aye-Yup. To be PORTABLE 'n' all, a LOT of the ones I remember sure were flimsy as all hell, w/all manner of easily-broken tee-ninecy parts to snap off & lose..And since a LOT of 'em took seemingly multiples of 150 "D" cells to work, w/the el cheapo busto-matic plastic cases, they were doomed to early graves...Or "Landfills"...

If I find either of these at a decent price, the Panasonic RX-7000 or RX-7200, I'll definitely add them to my collection:

http://www.shizaudio.ru/audio/./data...l_rx7000-1.jpg

http://www.shizaudio.ru/audio/./data.../67/__3477.jpg

Panasonic was prolly one of the BEST of the lot...They DID have "Standards"...

One of the largest boxes I've heard of (I saw a youtube video of one) had an LP capable linear tracking phono that played the discs in a vertical position (like some some jukeboxes do)...I'd like to say it is a Technics brand.

I actually have a Panasonic with a more normal slide out horizontal play phono mechanism that I ought to post a picture of. My Panasonic is surprisingly compact for what it is.

The biggest I had was a KLH (how the mighty had fallen!), it was one of the first pieces of electronics I'd seen that was made in China. It was just okay, not much of a tuner. I had a teacher in school that was in to old time radio and would play shows on his boombox, about the size of that Magnavox. It was a Wards Airline so must have been late 70s? I think they dropped the brand by the 80s. Anyway, it had SW as well.

My favorite boombox story: sometime in the 80s my father had repaired a car for this guy and the fellow accused Dad of tearing up his radio. Dad knew the guy was trying to scam him as he hadn't been anywhere near the trunk. So, Pop paid him some money then took the radio which upset the owner since he thought he was going to get to keep it and the money, too. Dad then took that boombox by the handle and, with a mighty swing, hurled it as hard as he could at the cement block wall! It broke into a thousand pieces, making my father feel much better and assuring that customer wouldn't give him any more trouble!

Anybody else remember this story, or did I dream it up ? I THINK I remember reading/hearing about some dude who got tired of listening to dreadful music coming from suitcase sized Boxes De Bume', & rigged up some sort of Device that rendered 'em INSTANTLY Null & Void-and apparently unfixable. Sounds like a Lovely Tale-anybody know anything about it, or did I simply dream it up ?!?

Ain't never heard of it elsewhere(I seem to recall it discussed here), but sounds like some kinda EMP weapon/high voltage gun or perhaps an actual firearm would be capable of that.

If you want to be rid of those boxes at any cost you could always go ride the New York subways as I hear tell boxes de bume have been illegal there for some time......I'd be afraid to draw breath in New yak not just cause a da smog, but cause it'd be my luck that they made breathing illegal that day.
Any place where a restaurant by law can't have salt on the table unless it is asked for by a patron, I consider my self unwelcome in.

Any place where a restaurant by law can't have salt on the table unless it is asked for by a patron, I consider my self unwelcome in.[/QUOTE]

At one time, in Wisconsin, restaurants weren't allowed to serve Oleo- margarine instead of butter. Also you couldn't buy colored Oleo. There were "Oleo runs" where people would drive to Illinois to buy it there. Wisconsin was known as "America's Dairyland".

I'm glad we have (for the most part) saner folks in office here in Wi these days. The laws some places have can be ridiculously pedantic and arbitrary at times.

A couple "Cheeseheads"-me too!
I won't comment on current Wisconsin politics...
Still have a Toshiba BomBeat 18 I bought new in '82.
Radio plays good, but eats cassettes...

I've had several boomboxes, all of them long gone (cassette decks went West, one cheap GPX box having quit after only three weeks [!], and they were not, in my opinion, worth repairing). However, I found a Panasonic boombox a couple of years ago near the trash barrels behind my apartment. The cassette deck worked for a short time, then quit; however, I think I know what the trouble is: a loose, stretched or broken drive belt. The radio works quite well, even though the FM antenna is missing.

Haven't had the box apart to look at the problem yet; oh well, one of these days. :D (Maybe, and I'm hoping this is the problem, the belt just slipped off a pulley, but I think it's a bit more serious than that.) It should only take a few minutes to diagnose the trouble, but if the belt is broken, I don't know if I could find replacements anywhere, as no one much uses boom boxes any more since the advent of CDs and mp3s. Ask a teenager today if he or she knows what a boom box is and you might well get a blank stare, a shrug and a surprised "What's that?", since today's kids have iPods and, in many cases, are wrecking their hearing listening to them with earbuds at extremely high volume.

I know there are (or were, until recently) boom boxes made with CD players; my barber here in town has one in his shop, but the CD deck doesn't work. Doesn't bother him, though. He keeps the radio set on a news-talk station in Cleveland most of the time.

JVC made some nice ones ca. late 1970s - monsters...