Boombox Time Capsule

A look at a New-Old-Stock Boombox from the 80s/90s.
All music is from the youtube audio library.

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[LGR]

What a delightful piece of junk, haha. Loved seeing all the cheap trickery inside.

[AlexKworld]

"The graphic equalizer will give you the choice of it either sounding dreadful, ...or terrible." That line absolutely cracked me up!! Love your videos, keep it up!!

[kamiboy]

That poor, poor thing. It waited 20 years in the darkness, then as soon it was taken out it was butchered for our entertainment.

[MF-lefp]

I received a JVC PC-150 for my 16th bday in 1985. It still kickin along today, relegated to dusty garage radio duty. Faithfully delivering it's tired flat sounds, daily.
I'm still amazed by its seemingly bullet proof construction, and it's amazing resilience in terms of total life span. Hats off to JVC, because the word "die", doesn't seem to be in this unit's vocabulary. It even has SW1 & SW2. Which seems to be devoid of anyone broadcasting anything these days

[MrTruth]

I want a round of applause, this is the first cheap boombox with an actual tweeter!!

[mckaycheatham]

I used to have the best boombox EVER. The lubricant on the doors had gunked up so the doors took OVER A MINUTE to open up!

[dcflake]

There's something so nostalgic about cheap tape being played on an even cheaper tape player. Takes me right back to childhood.

[eddievhfan]

I like your mentioning the whole "the medium is only as good as its playback hardware" phenomenon, because the same thing happened with CDs. Most portable CD players that first came out on the market (or even home receivers for that matter), as I understand it, used things like underspeced digital-to-analog converters to save cost, and it made CDs sound worse than they really were.

[TheCarDemotic]

Text everywhere, lots of buttons, lights all over the front, big, and low quality sound. Perfect

[christopherrichardson]

seems to be using old sharp wf 939/940 casing with crap electronics inside as there are switches where sticker is and center button was one touch dubbing button that worked. I have original wf 940 and my humble research seems to show most were sold in old eastern block countries and worth good money. Have only heard radio working on mine as tape mechanicals stuck with dried solid grease. restoring now but this video gives me more things to check out

[BastetFurry]

I would have still used that for a party-basement where stuff could get damaged.
And after the 3rd or 4th beer you don't mind the quality anymore. ;)

[melquizedec]

This is why people think Marketing is about lying to consumer.
Nice video, mate.

[letthetunesflow]

The crazy sound effects created by playing both tapes together makes that boom box actually worth the price IMO! It just sounds like a lot of fun to mess with…I’d lose hours mixing sounds of tapes together, and creating some crazy messed up tape speed sound effects!

[vinto]

Bought an Aiwa CA25 back in 1987.

Went until 1991 when the belt failed.

Got a replacement recently and it goes like new and used in the kitchen.

[RogerSartet]

I just subscribed to your channel. Been casting to my tv all evening. So many memories.
I used to (try and) repair these in my last years of high school and my college years. For friends that is. Never had one myself.
I remember the mainboards of these cheapo's were so badly soldered, some of the (badly) printed connections were re-done (in the factory I suppose) using wires. When you opened it up, you found these wires glued to the inside of the case...: Detaching (I mean simply moving around, not even disconnecting) one to get to the mainboard, often led to irreparable grounding issues (worse than the noise you demonstrate above) because of interference through the wires which weren't supposed to be there in the first place.
The king of these cheapo's (lowest tier possible) here in Belgium was a brand from the far East called "Tokyo" (sometimes also called Tsuru, with the same logo). Their logo was a trident.
What I mean with "Far East" is that some of their stuff came from Singapore, others from Malaysia, China, Korea....but never from Japan (probably already too expensive back then).
However, if I remember correctly (it's more than 30 years ago): At the heart of these boombox devices, whether it be a low-tier Tsuru/Tokyo or a more renowned brand, was very often the same "integrated amplifier IC": STK-something. (something = a number I really don't remember :-)
If you come across a Tokyo or a Tsuru, leave it, unless indeed it's just for 'set decorating' :-).
I bought my mum an Aiwa in 1997: Still works as a charm: CD, radio, cassette all in good order after 23 years.
Aiwa imho was one of the better, let's say 'mid-tier' brands in that era, especially for cassette based stuff, like boomboxes and portable cassette players. Sony bought 'em up and closed them down...for obvious reasons.
Keep up the cool work!

[Techmoan]

I'm really not too sure why so many people have decided to explain to me how continuous play operates....I don't recall saying I didn't understand it....and of course I do (how could anyone not...the description of the function is in the name). On this deck the far left piano key operates the continuous play feature. I didn't demonstrate continuous play in the video because it's just not interesting enough to spend any time on.

[visionist]

I love my silver Sony boombox! Fixed speakers, single cassette deck, no gimmicks! Just awesome sound! Thing is probably older than me. Paid a hundred pounds for it in 2009. Takes eight D cell batteries.

[R.T_Go_Your_Own_Way]

PMPO is "Purely Mythical Power Output"

[lulock]

"if you throw it off a cliff"... that had me laughing out loud... just discovered your channel... great videos!

[jayt]

Way late response: Continuous Play is supposed to allow the first tape deck to play all the way thru, then the second plays after the first stops. To make it work, you had to press play on the second deck and CP buttons at the same time, then play on the first deck. It sorta "loaded" the play button on deck two to engage when the first deck auto stopped. I remember seeing many units that had the fake CP buttons though, or for whatever reason they did not work. Just another feature copied from a higher end unit that they could print on the box.