My uncle, who worked at Soundesign (quality control) in New York, gave me one when I was a kid, in December 1985. (Mine was in black color with the furniture wooden color; this one in silver color I think it is the model before the black color). It was a mid-range set for around $250.00 dollars, some $600.00 today. It wasn't that powerful, but good sound definition. It made good radio to cassette recordings, for which it had a rec. level control. It also had an 8-track player. It had a separate turntable that came out, when you opened the door to the front.
Soundesign with a budget stereo back in the late '70s early '80s that you can get at kmart. This brand and Yorx. Where the discount department store brands to get if you couldn't afford the $500+ Fisher or Technics rack systems.. you can pick one of these up at Walmart for under $200. They miight not have been high wattage or have Dolby noise deduction but it was doable..
I had to look up sound design stereo after watching Jerry Cantrell Alice in Chains guitarist talk about one in a interview. His first set up was a sound design stereo that had a input you could plug a guitar into.
Had that exact one! Had 2 tower speakers and a phonograph on top plugged in aux as far as I remember with RCA Jacks, had a stand that held records below wow. What a throwback. I had mine about 1980 to 1987 loved it
I still have mine and it still works. I got mine in 1983. Mine is the black front cover and it used to be inside of a cabinet that came with the stereo and it had matching speakers, both which are long gone. BTW, you can use that stereo as an alarm clock. It was mine for years!
I found some Soundesign speakers at a yard sale for $5. Made In USA on back, 5 watts RMS, about 2ft tall. They are ported with a single 6” full range driver, both play but need to be replaced and riveted to the front. I don’t see a way to replace them without cutting up the back as everything is fitted and glued together. But it is nice to stumble onto some of those brands from my childhood.
I grew up in the 80's and I always remember Soundesign as being those cheaper all-in-one stereo systems made in Taiwan. I ALWAYS wanted one of the cooler rack systems made by Sony or Technics (or Pioneer or Kenwood) but my mother could never afford those. The fact that they always looked so sleek and high tech (and made in Japan which was synonymous with high quality), I drooled over them whenever we went to an electronics store.
I have this same set with turn table in wooden case.We bought it for our 1st apartment. 50 years ago. Everything works except 8 track. My toddler took care of that early on. Also have 2 floor speakers.
Looks so much like my childhood family one, except it also had the record player on top. Way cool man! I am actually really wanting an 80's boombox in the worst way.
You are right! Soundesign did or does get a bad rap but any one I’ve ever had was the most dependable stereo! I bought a boombox in 1985 that worked perfectly fine up until 1998 when it was stolen and then around 2007 I bought a soundesign rack system that was from the late 80s at Goodwill and had it until 2013 when I had to give it away to a neighbor when I had to move. As far as I know he still has it in working shape!
That's a Soundesign Model 5959. I have one. Mine is also silver. It needs work now. I think I wore it out over the years. In the last couple years both tape players died then the radio died last year. The only thing that still works is the clock system. I still keep it plugged in as my clock. I can't find any repair shops to get it fixed so now I can only listen to my 8 tracks in my truck.
Love this. I hope this stereo will work for years to come. I hate throwing out technology of any era so seeing this gratifies me greatly. How does it actually sound through the bookshelf speakers?
Some of those Soundesign products were actually pretty good so long as you weren't looking to shake the house or impress an audiophile. I like the brushed steel look best; I have a Soundesign clock/radio with that same digital display and I remember it was used in some other GE clocks too.
I've been looking at these recently. But I just had a question about the speaker hookup. They look like RCA? I didn't see banana plug or wire twist speaker input. How'd you wire the speakers?
i had one that looked almost exactly like this but it was a knockoff name like Sounddesign but I cant remember .. it had little left and right arrows to tell you to move the tuner to ideal signal stregnth
I have that same system however my speakers don’t have connectors on the ends of the wires , can you tell me what type of connectors I need to get ? Thankyou
I have a feeling he is using the Soundesign speaker outputs using a RCA cable plugged into the aux input on the Aiwa he's using for the actual sound. Another way would be using the headphone output and aux input. You can easily find these cables online or at a brick-and-mortar store. Just need to keep the volume low on the Soundesign.
