Boomboxes

[Jeffhs]

Here is my Panasonic RX-S5400 boombox, a trash find behind my apartment last year. The cassette deck was working, but I think a belt must have snapped, as the take-up hub spindle does not move when the deck is in playback mode. The radio, however, works well and sounds excellent. The only things I could see wrong with this unit as found were, one, the FM antenna was broken, two, the former owner had left the batteries in it for goodness only knows how long (the originals were still there), as several of them had leaked onto the battery contacts, and three, the battery compartment cover is missing. However, the AC power cord was still attached to the unit when I found it, so it was easy to test it when I brought it inside; worked as soon as I threw the switch.

This unit is a keeper, as Panasonic probably doesn't make big, hefty boom boxes like this one anymore, having switched to building and marketing CD/mp3/satellite radio players; the latter, of course, are much, much smaller than any boombox ever was--witness the very small "stick" mp3 players now available these days at Big Lots, et al. for $10 or less.

The price of SanDisk's "Sansa" mp3 player is coming down in a big way as well; the large-capacity players (with 2+ gigabyte storage capacity before formatting) can be had for about $30, with the original 512mb Sansa now selling almost dirt-cheap. I'd have one by now, but I just found out two days ago that the iTunes mp3 player does not support any other operating systems except Windows XP and Vista (I run Win98SE on a nine-year-old IBM Aptiva 595 computer, 128mb RAM and 600-MHz AMD "K7" processor). The only other way I am aware of right now to download to a portable mp3 player the music now on my computer would be to use my Winamp 5.3 media player, which is capable of downloading mp3 files to portable devices.

BTW, I took the attached picture of my Pana boombox in something of a hurry and in less-than-optimum lighting, so it will be dark (at least it looks that way on my old HP Pavilion mx70 monitor). If you supersize the image and increase the brightness of your monitor, however, it should show just fine.

[zenith2134]

Sold my Sharp VZ-2000. Was a beast, with its 'both-sides-play' turntable system. Yikes...!

Got a pretty penny for it though.....

[markdi]

ke4mcl are you sure your jvc had 20 watts per channel ?

Probably not 20 w rms.

It would need a 80/100 watt ac power supply

or more than 15 alkaline d batterys.


maybe 20 watts per channel pmpo.

[koseltri]

If ke4mcl is talking about the JVC PC-55, he's not exaggerating. It is rated at 27 wpc, the sticker lists power consumption as 93w, so this sounds like RMS power to me. If you heard my PC-55 driving my Monitor 10s, you'd believe it. I also own two of those APM-equipped Sonys he mentioned, and they are rated at 22w RMS per channel. Got one right here driving a pair of old Mission 700s (currently listening to the "Hatari!" soundtrack on the B & O 4002). Come to the get-together in Kelso, I'll have it there.

[markdi]

with a 93 watt supply 20w per channel that jvc must have sounded pretty good.

I have a sony fh110wx sony mini system

apm speakers with active motion feedback.

I need to fix the foam on the woofers - to make it sing again.

I still need to order 1 more belt for the cassette deck
in my sony cfd 5 boombox.

the ac supplly in my cfd 5 has a 1.6 amp medium blow
fuse but the back pannel says 48 watts and the fuse has never been replaced so maybe it has a bit more power than 48 watts.

the power transformer is located up near an air vent in the top of the case.

I need to buy a digital camera.

the only reason I am awake right now is some one slashed all 4 of my car tires a few hours ago.

[koseltri]

The Sonys I have are much earlier, The FH-7 Mk. II, one in black (US), and one in silver (Canada). From what I've seen, the later FH's became rather watered down, with twin cassette decks, and only Dolby B (though the wireless remote is nice). The FH-7 Mk II has dolby C, rare among portables. The surrounds in these speakers are cloth, no rot here.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/att...6&d=1218686579

[markdi]

My fh110wx is anything but watered down.

It is the same size as yours but sony packed
more hardware into mine.

3 way super wide apm speakers.

Twin autoreverse cassette with dolby b and c.

each deck has 2 or maybe 3 motors.

Quick reverse with music search and blank skip
and auto tape type sensor.

digital tuner

5 band eq with spectrum analizer.

Amfb - active motion feedback control of the woofers.

There is a motion sensor built into each woofer.

Each speaker has 4 wires connecting the speakers to the amp.

Amfb = killer tight bass.

It is a portable system but to me it is not a boombox.

boomboxes must be able to run on batterys.

[ke4mcl]

Originally Posted by markdi

ke4mcl are you sure your jvc had 20 watts per channel ?

Probably not 20 w rms.

It would need a 80/100 watt ac power supply

or more than 15 alkaline d batterys.


maybe 20 watts per channel pmpo.

i believe thats what the power meters indicated. it was a very highend unit bought by my best friends cocaine cowboy father in the 80's. a set of batteries lasted long enough to get the girls attention poolside. the amp is still around here somewhere....

[jr_tech]

Don't bother to dig it out.... "Carnac the Magnificent " guesses: "Model RX-S5400"

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

Here is my Panasonic RX-S5400 boombox, a trash find behind my apartment last year. The cassette deck was working, but I think a belt must have snapped, as the take-up hub spindle does not move when the deck is in playback mode. The radio, however, works well and sounds excellent.

(From post # 53 on this thread)
jr