to 90s kids, a boombox was to today's kids what an iphone is lol if you had a boombox in your room you had the freedom to jam anything you wanted and when CDs came out you had to upgrade!
Yeah. But in my time, walkman was more of a thing than boombox, having a portable cassette player was more of a swag. To think those days I had to ask my dad to lend me one for short time use, and now kids ask and get iPhone or other smartphones so easily. Times sure have changed.
I went to a boot fair a month or two ago and picked up an old Sony TC-WE435 (An old hifi deck) for 2 euros. Honestly one of my favorite buys. These boomboxes are very nice for on the go but for at-home listening I would recommend a more high-end unit, as they can sound a lot better and you can avoid a lot of the wow and flutter that comes with a boombox.
Wow i used to hold these things next to my ear while i carried it around because i saw people in movies do that 20+ years ago and we used it to pirate music too i also remember seeing a old james bond movie from the 80s where they had a hidden rocket launcher in these things so i tried to pretend it was a rocket launcher while playing with my friends.
I remember getting a new tape player in 2013 that was so cheap it only had a play function, not even a FF/RW. and not long into owning it the pitch screwed up, so I went with a used one from a thrift store which while still has a bit of a pitch issue (but nowhere near as bad as the "new" one) is better suited for playing tapes.
Oh god, Heart FM... It sounds even worse than normal! I'm now worried that I'm now going to feel the wholly unnecessary urge to renovate my 30+ year old 'boombox', provided it's survived a decade or so in the loft.
Heart FM is the worst radio station you could have used... I'd have rather taken Radio 1... or Radio 4! But hey, if you have a boombox to fix and it has a radio then you should be able to pick up something that isn't Heart FM. :p
Awesome a video about tapes!!! I love my cassettes, o have over 200 of them and record loads of music onto them on my high end systems. Then when I go away in a trip, I take my Sony Cassette Corded with me. Mine is similar to yours but is from about 2 maybe 3 years before. It's about 1/3 bigger and gets really loud. You'll be surprised that even at 17 and 3/4 that i've been collecting and recording tapes since early 2016. Awesome video!
Ah, very nice video sir - and a decent looking unit. Ill be showing my age a bit here, but I can totally picture a younger self enjoying some Altantic 252 on that LW radio portion of this beast :D
clean the caspian pin and the roller and anything that comes in contact with the tape with iso, ferric tapes leave an awful mess. clean the drive wheels and belts with alcohol, grease and oil tends to migrate from the metal parts
they all leave oxide behind to some degree and a crappy head, misaligned capstan pins and rollers and poorly ground guides i.e. nearly all sub £300 decks, can make it work
If the Line-in 3.5 mm port works, buy a cheap Bluetooth receiver and give it a second lease on life. I recently convinced my father to do that for an early-aughts Sony player, and it worked perfectly
I bought my Samsung boombox in 1990. It's a stereo one with "super bass sound" as Samsung called it, double tape drive, one with recording and high speed dubbing. Also have AM, FM radio, sound equalizer. It was and amazing piece of technology back in the day. The funny thing is that i'm still using that boombox to listen to my AC/DC and Metallica casette collection.
Panasonic and JVC made the best boomboxes while TDK and Maxell made the best blank tapes. I still do have a hifi Sony VCR though. It's a SLV-775HF from 1996. And, before you ask, yes, it still works perfectly fine to this very day. I also own a Sony sports cassette walkman with Dolby B NR as well. However, I am currently looking for a new cassette boombox (preferably with Dolby B, aux in, and mic in) because my walkman doesn't have recording capabilities and it would be awesome to have a working one displayed in my bedroom.
My family had this EXACT model back when I was growing up. Good times. But I can tell you it's ALOT older than 1996. I remember it being used on my 6th birthday, in 1995.
I have a Sony CFD 440 that one of my friends did not want anymore and told me it did not power up, but, it did work, I just did not how to turn it on at first because I had never used a boombox before, when I first got it it was really dusty, and now Its working perfectly, except for the CD players, which is dissapointing for my Megadeth and Hard Rock/Metal CD collection, but either way it has a Mixing Mic port which works well as an AUX but, some instruments just sound low, so I used my Bose speaker which i was using before, connected my PC to both of them with a Audio Splitter, and now its just perfect!!!
I have an old Pioneer HIFI that will not play CD's, but it as 2 tape decks with auto reverse and plays beautifully. love the video something different nice man.
Tried to turn my old one a few months ago into a bluetooth speaker, got one of those tape to aux things attached to a bluetooth receiver powered by an old portable charger, worked great. Would love to be able to make the boombox rechargeable but im useless at that kind of stuff
there's no way to insert anything into the signal path between the deck and the amplifier in these without modification, also it wouldn't really be portable anymore
I thought the background music sounded familiar. It was. I used to watch Animusic when I was in the 3rd and 4th grade, during days when we didn't have to do anything in music class.
Nice Video! Let's try with it some FM car trasmitter or something else, i should try one of it on my old Pioneer, i'm curious about it will sound since i got a lot of digital music, and also digital files come with better noise reduction in comparision of old formats, definitely a benefit for Sony CFS-D20L.
10:00 omg that song is from Sim City 3000 UK Edition! Took me a while to work out where I heard it from! The track is called "Building" from Sim City 3000 downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/sim-city-3000-music-from/11%2520Building.mp3
I got one of those (Panasonic) that my parents bought when I was born lol and I use it as a speakers for my pc (AUX to Cassette Adapter) and they sound pretty good.
Fast forward to 2023 and, whilst I would still fix up one of these if given the opportunity (or if it was cheap), I wouldn't necessarily buy one for my personal use. Why? Because virtually no one uses tapes/cassettes any more, AM is being switched off (or has already been switched off), and FM generally doesn't give you much choice. Unless you're in a big city (e.g. London) or a town/city with plenty of community stations (e.g. Leicester/Northampton) you're probably going to get Radios 1-4, Classic FM, your local BBC, Heart FM (or Capital/Kiss/GHR if you're lucky), and that's about it. DAB or Online radio is the way forward.
I bought the Panasonic RX-D27, brand new in the original box package in 2016, I sell my D29 unit around the year 2006 (can't remember) and regret selling it, I have the D27 for recording purposes, to put the cassette signal in the line in audio jack of the pc and recording the content into wav audio files. (sorry for poor english), also have the RX-D10 but does not work anymore
I think you should do a video on how you clean these devices i.e. what cleaner you used for which pieces and how you clean them like by scrubbing or wiping etc.
You can also make a video on what you do with a PC you find like what is used on which type of computer and what software do you like to put on them and how one can make the best use of it..
for the amount of time, in 2 weeks here in the US, you could buy like 3 boom box's , and 1/÷ is always guranteed to work. I've tried this system, But always be sure when buying an expensive model, I bought a 5 dollar sharp boombox, (INCREDIBLY loud), but once at home, the belt was worn out... So when buying 5-10 dollar, Stereo cassette systems or boom box's, ALWAYS test them
I think for boomboxes I'd go for an 80s one, as though it'd probably be more expensive, it'd have NR and Dolby stuff and more compatibility with different tape types. I don't think I'd bother with a 90s one, really. The format was dying out by then so very few makers put out quality stuff. CDs were all the rage and cassettes were quickly being left by the wayside. Very interesting experiment, though! Maybe next time also do a take from the headphone or line out directly into a sound card or capture device, to get a better idea of the sound quality? Lovely vid, mate.
Can’t watch this video now as me and the wife had a falling out! I have this exact boom box and it needs fixing, bad belt I think... I have liked this video and shall watch it tomorrow. Good man.
I had some late 1970 boom boxes by Toshiba and Hitachi that were expensive and incredible. Not the cheap garbage that proliferated in the 1980's and 1990's.
Nice stuff, I like this! This is the sort of thing I'd do as well, try and find something, fix it, and use it. Except that I don't use tapes, as I have none left (all of my music is either CD or digital) and I certainly wouldn't use Heart FM as a benchmark. Maybe Radio 4 is more soothing to my ears... or Radio 1... or any other radio station at all.
In regards to your comment about the new content coming up on the channel on your last video, Idon't mind it... I like your standard content more though. If this kind of thing were peppered in occasionally I think it would be a welcome change of pace. Kind of like LGR, not everything has to be computers and games I mean he reviewed Burger King headphones not too long ago and that is one of my favorite videos of his.
I like what are you doing i own an Aiwa nsx-DR4 cd stereo. i know its not that old but the sound is incredible (everybody is thinking that i have a subwoofer there :D ) the eq is genius in that thing currently im using it on one of my pc as speakers
It would be cool of some company made some legacy edition boomboxes with bluetooth capability. Kindof like how Polaroid released a legacy edition of thier famous cameras.
The best ones come with graphic equalisers. The ability to play metal tapes is also ok although I was never fully sold on the metal tape format. Record on Metal once then try again it keeps the original over lapped with new. You are hitting into my turf now, I been buying brand new boom boxes or Ghetto blasters since the 80's. Will say this though, I did like chrome cassette tapes.Those were very nice.
