Searching for the last true analog radio - Panasonic & 5 Core 

You beat me to it. I just uploaded a video in which I opened it up and discovered the Sony chip inside. The chip has a built-in 0.5W audio amplifier.

Whats the sony chip Do? The little space was for a third battery but now is used for smuggling.

@@ofthedawn The Sony IC is an integrated AM/FM radio on a chip, with a built in audio amplifier. All you need are a few external components and you've got a radio!

The speaker is killer serious for only being driven by a ½ watt amplifier !!!

From 3V your will never get 10W unless the speaker is 0.5 ohms or use an ouput transformer. So the power supply limits it already. 0.5W can sound good if properly designed. Most portable radios from 70s were 1W or belowm but it is good to have marging on the speaker so it will never go bad like on other cheap radios that is alsmot a headphne speaker or PC like speaker. The on on this radios looks like a proper spekar from a bigger device actually.

It's probably largely down to how well made the digital tuner is. Like someone else mentioned elsewhere in the comment section, it's a race to the bottom, so most of them tend to use very low quality digital tuners.

That's what I love about my Magnavox boombox! It gets as good reception as my classic receiver hooked up to a long wire antenna.

I don't even understand why an analog radio even needs a digital tuner. We live in an analog world and have analog senses.These digital radios take an analog input signal, convert it to digital, convert it back to analog, and output it to the speaker. This is two steps of needless conversion. Just leave it all analog, like the Indian radio does.

@@tarstarkusz So, why wasn't this a problem in the 80s? People were fine paying the extra for quality. When did we become such cheapskates?

@@dougbrowning82 I agree but we are all to blame I guess. An am fm portable was 80 bucks back in the 60s. A cheap one half that. So that's like a 150 to 300 purchase today. Yes the same goes for a class d amplifier. Is it really much better? Well it's smaller and lighter. Probably less likely to last too.

Yes yes ! Teardown that last analog radio !

I think some small people are inside, creating music, news etc....😂

@@colloidalsilverwater15ppm88 Like... 10 little indians, or something 😎

This wouldn't be up his alley, but it would be cool to see the bad quality case be replaced with something diy, of higher quality, and possibly the addition of the power inputs; the pinouts are probably still present on the board but just not hooked up for the Indian market.

@@thatmatt41 I think the power inputs got cancelled when they switched the design from three batteries (4.5V) to two (3V).

Analog Ham Radio Transceivers

Meanwhile this company has winded up. But there are many such radios you can find in India -about 30 to 40 brands in the gray market-the IFTs, coils, ferrite rod, transistors, speakers all are manufactured cheaply in Delhi region. These units assamble them. These radios are available in India damn cheap about #7/-.

I used to have an ICR-9740W and it was a pleasant unit. In 2010, as part of a companywide reorganization, many Sony legacy products including the last cassette Sony Walkman were terminated. These may have been slow sellers but were still profitable. My guess is that the company became very image-conscious and did not to be perceived as purveyor of "cutting edge" technologies (like their since-failed smartphones and laptop PCs), phasing out production of "old school" items that were deemed anachronistic and contrary to Sony's desired corporate image.

Do you happen to know if the Sony ICF-506 a true analogue tuner radio?

Sony has lost their balls since a few years when all their products basically became worse and worse and they were even so dumb to stop making laptops and phones.

How coincidental you mention this radio I copied the model number to see what the radio looked like and I just happen to have that exact model radio sitting next to my desk. Bought it at a thrift store a couple months ago for like $6

@@KRAFTWERK2K6 Sony still makes laptops and phones, they just don’t sell them in the USA.

The thing DSP does give is consistency. All radios with the same DSP will have the same performance. An analogue radio has quite a few adjustments (maybe ten in a 1970s design) which all need to be set spot on in the factory for optimum reception. Having said that I have a 1970s Pye Radio that uses proper IF transformers rather than the non adjustable ceramic filters that became popular in the 1h980s, and reception is excellent.

I think this radio is crap and I do not understand all the hype about it

For Americans it is a strange product in 21st century. But it is not the only analog cheap radio brand. There are 3 dozen such brands available in India even today. And even in India townsmen consider it less prestigious to buy such radios.

Yes ... and a must if you want to become a world class serial killer .

Punch buggy white, NO PUNCHBACKS!

Roach Coach

FM is okay with DSP, it is AM and Shortwave that is a real pain when tuning. It is also dependent on the radio. Ironically with all the pretty good Chinese made radios from relatively unknown companies, the Panasonic is one of the worst. It would be an injustice if Panasonic decided to bring back those nifty "ball" radios of the 70s and put a shitty tuner in them when the originals were actually great little radios.

I didn't realize the race to the bottom was that bad these days. I still have several of my old radios and have never replaced them.

The digital processing is much better in cars where the signal is hardly ever too fuzzy

Except they aren't gone. The Samsung Galaxy A40 has a quite decent FM radio tuner, not the best if you live near transmitters, but definitely far from the worst. Car radios are also of very high quality. The 4th gen Renault Clio has a high quality FM tuner. Probably the best one I've seen so far.

@@kevinpatrickmacnutt Analog FM sounds way betterthan Digital Fm

Yes, me too

it's 3 AM!! 3 AM!! It's 3AM Eternaaaaalllllll!!!

I had an Indian friend who told me about the wonderful products that India makes and never exports because the home market is so large that they don't need to

Stop calling me every day. I don't need a lower interest rate and my social secirity number is not suspicious and there is nothing wrong with my Amazon account.

@@whykoks bhai admi toh chote se hi bada banta hain.. to khusiyo main kyou nehi... hum log ko proud karna chahiye at least hum log ka khud ka technology lagaya hain.. china se copy karne nehi banaya hain humne.. khud ka R&D design hain.. main maan ta hou woh chez chota hain.. par mere liye proud ki bat hain

proud to be an indian 😇😇 #jai_hind 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

You are a liability as an Indian. yu being proud of a nonachievement is a liability for me, as I being an Indian, but who does not think like you, is clubbed and branded with you by others who do not know the wide variety of Indians. so, instead, west Bengal should shut up, invest huge amounts in research and produce some really patented products, and not make radios with sony chips. only the rejected plastic mould must have been made in your state of West Bengal, which is a liability for other parts of India. as it is west Bengal has tainted India's reputation, by spamming scammers.

I worked in many companies following that process. It just means "we do the same thing with five times more paperwork".

Precisely, I was a Quality Engineer for major car companies and then a consultant to smaller suppliers and that's exactly how ISO 9001 and previous standards worked. Nobody had any incentive to improve their quality unless customers stopped buying their product. It was all about 'traceability (I.e lots of paperwork and protecting yourself from being sued). Very depressing for me and my team who were intent on improvement of quality.

So true!

All an ISO quality system basically means is you document what you're making to keep producing the same crap over and over again without a fault ! ...LoL

@@etow8034 but it sounds bettethan the fake pretty one's 😂

I remember an old video about a £1 microphone from the pound shop, which apparently sounded quite decent for the price, and the video also commented on how they must have put all of the money into the insides, and not the horrible cheap housing.

The Japanese, and the Americans before them, used to do both. Personally, I'd never own a radio with such sloppy build quality, regardless of how it performs. Sure it's functional, but for how long?

@@johnstone7697 , for as long as you don't smash it when you're drunk and angry!

Yeah but if you drop it the plastic would probably shatter.

@@qwertykeyboard5901 Same is with iPhones! :)

Panasonic radio is run by their chinese side of business I think. Radio isn't big business, their real growth area is lithium ion batteries.

@Lassi Kinnunen 81 They do that with entry-level devices like this radio here, but in general Panasonic is a very respectable brand and still manufactures many products in Japan. The vast majority is also engineered by Panasonic and not rebadged. Besides, no one in the target audience would ever have noticed, let alone complained, about any "choppiness" in the tuning. Those people who do would not buy such a radio anyway (and those who need one for their workshop would probably get a second-hand one). In general, it's just funny how the tone of the video influences the comments section. A brand can be praised to heaven or shred to pieces depending on what the uploader believes. Check the comments in Techmoan's Panasonic boombox videos for an example.

Panasonic used to make way nicer looking radios than that back in the 70s, kind of disappointed even with the design really

@@MacPhantom You definitely make a point here, as Panasonic is a respected brand associated with high quality supurb products. Therefore Panasonic should not tolerate and associate with a product meeting poor / lower standards like this radio. I for one would like to see intervention and quality upgrade from Panasonic, after the revealing from this investigative video.

@@MacPhantom Strangely Jay Allen, who has collected and reviewed hundreds of radios rates the DSP Panasonics highly. He is using different criteria though; trying to receive distant AM stations in the presence of powerful local ones.

My love for radio started when I was a kid and I was given a radio with AM, FM and two short-wave bands. Listening to all these foreign AM and SW radio stations from around the World at nightime to improve reception felt like I was doing something forbidden. I even connected it to an old tv antenna with a piece of wire leftover and recorded some music to cassette. Today, much older, I still like to spend time scanning in silence and listening, just listening. There's something magical about it.

i would listen if i could find a station where conservative and liberal women fight. but in europe they don't.

@@ivok9846 In Europe it's all socialist propaganda in disguise.

In developing countries (especially in rural areas) you may only have weak radio reception, maybe even AM only. Probably there is no (or very slow) internet access. A well working radio max be your only source of information and music. In NYC or Paris you are probably happy with a digital radio that looks nice, bonus if it works as a bluetooth speaker for spotify. If you ever use FM on that bad digital tuner it probably works just fine because there are several strong FM stations....

99.999% of electronic workmanship for consumer products is puuuuure junk ! Most of the time I have to open up the unit to deflux and touch up all the solder joints to at least IPC-A-610 Class 1 standards.

@@etow8034 What is IPC-A-610 Class 1 standard?

Dsp radios eat batteries

Now I want to buy one of those Indian radios and try to see if I can solder the missing DC power jack to the circuit board.

@@claypf4795 I'd imagine it doesn't have a transformer

It doesn't need a transformer if you can run it off DC wall wart. You only need a transformer if you want to use AC to power a DC radio.

@@EmergencyChannel yeah, the adapter IS the transformer, but I didn't want to get into a fight with him. There's often a few components on the board for voltage regulation, those may need to be added.

@@claypf4795 Probably just needs a few diodes and filtering cap if anything. This would end up being a 3v wallwart now. The casing just says 4.5v because obviously the original internal design used 3 batteries instead of 2.

the "brain" of that indian radio is a Sony analog tuner IC, probably on a "reference design" circuit from the datasheet. all the third world did was put it in a crappy case

@@arcade_signal Yet if that's so, then it still seems the first world can't seem to figure out how to do the same.

@@ropersonline Well there are a few reasons for that (none of them being that the countries which invented radios can't "figure out" how to make a decent one): 1. The IC is no longer in production, because 2. There is almost nonexistent demand for a basic AM/FM radio with analog tuning in the first world. Most likely the only reason this particular radio has analog tuning is because somebody bought a big lot of discontinued analog ICs for cheap, or had surplus. I doubt that the manufacturer even knows it's a good thing to have that IC, else it would be all over the box as a feature. When they run out of those chips, you will find a DSP in there and it will be just as crappy as the Panasonic (which is an extremely low end model not normally sold in the first world). 3. There are an abundance of first world radios with first world build quality with analog tuning available on the used market, for next to nothing. the minuscule amount of people who care enough to want one have their pick of the best of the best. 4. the first world has generally moved on from radios except for emergency use and weirdos. In the first case, analog tuning is not needed and in the second, as mentioned before, there is plenty on the used market to satisfy them Anyway, poverty isn't cool or glorious and I'm rooting for the people trapped in the third world to revolt and/or escape their hell, not make sloppy copies of ancient technology in sweatshops for 25 cents a day.

@@arcade_signal "I'm rooting for the people trapped in the third world to revolt"

@@ropersonline it really depends on the place and there is no one size fits all answer. I would prescribe revolution to countries run by ultraconservative religious theocracies where the people, if given the choice, would want to move beyond burning heretics or whatever. or maybe a change of regime would be good for places where the regime is an inflexible authoritarian strongman dictatorship type of thing. I don't think telling the people in those situations to wait for things to get better via politics does a lot of good, when "politics" in their country is probably bribes and corruption top to bottom, or controlled by a witch doctor and his acolytes.

With any Soviet made equipment (like Lada cars) I wonder what the true cost was when they were being made. I would guess they cost much more within the USSR while in Europe their electronics were always sold as the bargain basement alternative to stuff made in Hong Kong, apart from Shopertunities who would claim they used the same technology as Russian spy "trawlers".

I suspect it is the case that most if not all digitally-tuned radios use more power than their analogue equivalents. Probably not a fair comparison but my Roberts R809 will only run for about a day on a set of 4xAA cells, whereas my Saisho-branded one (also multi-band) works for ages on a set of 2xAA cells.

@@MrDuncl VEF 202 cost 99 rubles, VEF 206 117, Ocean 209 (Selena 211) 135 . Average salary in 70s-80s was 130-160 rubles. But you cant go to shop and buy any radio you want. Some model need get through friends, or wait when will they appear in the store.

You're wrong LOL You can't fit any power cord in the space of single D battery, unless it's an inch or two long only, or it is really just a cord without any plugs... The DC 4.5V input socket (blinded now) left from previous version/reiteration of this radio give you nice hint it was designed (the housing, not the actual board inside this model) to run on 3 x 1.5V batteries = 4.5V and this empty 'compartment' is where the third battery would go in.

The cord compartment has to be slightly wider and/or bigger than the battery compartment. We used to have a Sony radio with a smooth analog tuner that had this sort of space for the cord.

Don't know if it's using an internal loop? The last radio I bought with SW said to keep the antenna flat (not vertical) for best reception, so in this case not extended rather than up is still better. This does look like a poorly made Philips, great radios.

could be, i have a couple of philips sets with same control layout... though they are lw and mw only, no sw

The 'Philips' branded radios in India are also manufactures by small and tiny manufacturing units, who are licensed to use the 'Philips' brand.

I think that some of the bias (in north america at least) is that most people's experience with AM radios was car stereo's; with the constant unstoppable interference from the ignition systems of the car. I volunteer at my local museum and were have several functional AM radios from the 30's to the 70s, and yes, they sound this good and better. AM can sound as good as FM; it just requires proper design, and not being treated as an afterthought.

A fully modulated AM carrier is very sweet to the 👂ears👂.

Really. That's a speaker feeding a mic. No judgment possible. We used to have a 20 to 20kHz AM station but it died in 2007 a victim of HD radio (what a joke) , it was HIFI not normal AM. Any good car radio and car has zero noise from the engine. AM will be gone in 20 years. Most AM's have an FM repeater now. It may not have the range but goodby noise. Then there is the internet.

I still find AM and SW fascinating things, especially SW because I can pick up radio stations from across the English channel

My 2009 Jeep had an excellent sounding AM radio. It sounded as good as some cars FM radio.

DSP tuning mute can effect digital tuning radios so DSP isn't perfect even in digital tuning radios, some radios don't suffer from the tuning mute like the Tecsun PL-880,990x, S-8800 but the audio quality on SSB is just terrible. The PL-330 and H501x sound better but still far from perfect, can't beat the sound of a pure analogue radio such as the PL-660 and PL-680 Tecsuns and this makes using ECSS a joy and almost impossible on the DSP radios, ECSS is essential to the ture SWL DX'er.

Auto scanning radios are terrible. They skip over weaker stations or lock onto one of the images of a strong station. They give you less control to cut costs and size. DSP can be made quite responsive and good enough for FM. For example using a bt878 chip on a PC. The thuds when tuning fast are short and quiet.

I remember seeing the “low” indicator a week after this video. They have since restocked 😁

Where can European ppl order one?

Although they are branded 'Philips', they are manufactured by various small or even tiny scale industries, who are licensed to use the brand name. There are various other brands which are fully analog radios. These are available at low prices. Use of high grade plastics increases the price tag. As far as you get a good quality reception and good sound, the quality of plastic does not matter. I have various Tecsun radios and an XHDATA-D808. But I use them only for speech, (e.g. news) For listening music I use one of the 'Philips' models.

@@prasadasgoa That is true for almost everything labeled Philips! It originally was a broad electronics manufacturing company, which made products in almost every part of the electronics/lighting market. But it has been heavily restructured and almost all those factories have been sold off, they now only make some personal care products (shavers etc) and there still is the division for professional medical products, all the other things you see labeled as Philips are made by other companies licensed to use that brandname.

No reason for that. Tube chassis are often extremely easy to get working again.

@@mfbfreak Could still swap it into a better quality casing while retaining the benefit of compact size.

@@NozomuYume Why bother when there are still hundreds of old radios waiting for restoration in thrift stores or on Ebay. DSP based tuning has only been around for about ten years.

Sure FM use chip for tuning because FM broadcast was not there when radios around world using LC tunning for reception. FM arrived late in India during 80s.

Those radios are repairable. Shango066 has lots of radio repair videos showing how he does it.

Waiting for me as I arrived home this afternoon. Both smaller and heavier than I understood. My first test was two big MW signals that shouldn't come in before sundown. One was not great but listenable. The other was as clear as a local signal. A third test of a big signal that should but doesn't come in wasn't listenable, but since on other units it doesn't anything before sundown that is an A+. Audio quality on my local music AMs and classical FM is so good my description would be accused of being hyperbole. It really looks like, lets just say, an extremely price-conscious purchase. A second unit may well be acquired to live in the garage.

I was thinking the same thing! Their digital machines are good too if you're into that.

For info most Roberts Radios are made by Sangean. I'm not sure about the wood and cloth cased ones that cost five times the cost of these two.

No HMT has stopped making watches. Actually the company has shut down a decked ago.

Yeah that thing is one of the most sensitive compact World Receiver radios. It's really really good on AM and SW.

I have one, too. It's the only SW radio I have that can pick up WWV in my house

Yeah the R-9012 is great on AM and SW, not so good on FM. The small 76-108 tuner is too crowded to offer good selectivity. I think the R-909 is a hair better on FM.

@@joshm264 LOL I can sometimes pick up the WWV at 10MHz near Budapest at night with my Russian VEF-206 and Sony ICF-7600DA. Not very frequently, but it happens.

i just ordered the tecsun r-9012 and have read good things about them for being a $20 analog radio it reminds me of the old Realistic DX-350 i had in the 90's...that was a great little radio

Try the C CRANE SKYWAVE.

Dang! That is an amazing combo! Very rare though! :)

@@jarjarbinks3193 Yup, it is, and even more if you consider all the distance between both countries, Brazil and India ♥

This is not a branded Indian company but a local assembly unit. Nobody knows this brand in India. There were two branded indigenous Indian manufacturers Nelco and Santosh that produced such radios 25 years ago. Recently the maker of Nelco is manufacturing digital radios by the name Croma.

Especially given that there are chips with analogue radios on them.

The answer to that is the analog filter network. Doing precision filtering in DSP is SO much easier than using low-tolerance parts with mechanical interfaces, like tunable coils and capacitors. A digital receiver is tuned to a relatively wide bandwidth, and filters everything in software. The IC itself is way more complex, of course, but once it's designed, it can be replicated with photo lithography. Contrast that to the dozens of parts needed to design an analog filter...

@@nickwallette6201 I know, I am a computer engineer with a masters and ongoing phd in microelectronics myself. This still amazes me.

Lol wut??!

Makes me slightly jealous TBH.

I wonder if production-line workers in India earn more than those in China? While there's a very large population of affluent Chinese, there are massive numbers of Chinese earning very little. Also keep in mind that India has had numerous military and diplomatic conflicts with the PRC over the decades, there's a lot of pride in buying domestically-made products rather than consumer goods made by India's arch-enemy.

@Lassi Kinnunen 81 Well I would prefer something made in a free country to something made in China.

India still make the Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle, which was first manufactured (in the UK) in 1948.

I have a Roberts's stream 94i great radio.

Your car would

@@bradygiltz5160 it's constantly on one station, never touched it

its both a grammatical error AND a campaign by the government to promote local manufacturing

@@DanafoxyVixen haha. I mean the manufacturing isnt done yet, so to promote it the government said "make in india"

Fair enough. In this context, "Make" is a verb, not an adjective. It is calling the reader and prospective vendor to actually make products in India, not describing the country of origin of a finished "made" product.

Some radio enthusiast claim that radio (with its pop up "gyro" antenna) is the best radio ever made for AM reception.

I have a 70's Philco Transglobe that arrived to my family before myself. Unfortunately, in my country, MW and SW bands are almost completely taken by religious stations or to transmit soccer games.

Yup, trying to digitise a format that is designed to use the strengths of analogue. I volunteer at my local museum. We have several restored AM radios from the 1930s through the 1970s that sound ridiculously good; even without 'proper' antennas. Meanwhile in my car every AM station sounds like it has been put through some sort of fuzz box (and it's not interference from the engine, as I know what that sounds like, this isn't that)

I just ordered the version branded T-22 ---- I did see that they have one branded T-291 but absolutely no indication of what electrical differences there may be. The cabinet is obviously different. I have broadcast radios made or assembled in about 36 countries - This will be my first from India. Kuddos for selecting a "The Last-Of" topic. I see today that you can now make a video on the last LG smartphone:

Placed an order on Friday morning and it arrived today. You probably had a shodder plastic job than I did. That said, there is a cheap feel to the outside of it. However, it did exactly what it was supposed to do and worked like a charm =]

IS it still working. years later?? mines kaput

@@SIEBEGORMEN it works but antenna snapped off and speaker a little iffy. Shrug. I don’t use it much

Even if the molds are old and have crap finish and imperfections, that's still no excuse to use bad, brittle plastic.

@@NozomuYume It doesn't feel brittle -- the plastic is actually softer and more flexible than the kind Panasonic used. It's just made from a low-quality molding.

At this point, considering the population of India and the fact that 1984 is almost 40 years ago, I'd be surprised if they hadn't literally banged out at about 1/2 billion!

9021119117

Ahuja is the major player for audio systems across there aren't they?

@@RediffusionMusic Of course, they are a top brand & of good quality but only in public address systems, mics etc! NO RADIOS!😢

Although not all analog tuners have tuning condensers. Those cheap ones usually have a plastic one though.

@@westelaudio943 And there are analog radios which use varactor tuning, like the GE/RCA Superadio III.

@@vwestlife Excactly, and ferrite slug tuners exist as well.

@@vwestlife I know some portable radios were varicap tuned, but they weren't too common AFAIK, like I've never seen one for myself. And car radios were often inductively tuned.

No, that space is far too small for a power cord. You can see it was originally designed for three batteries, thus the now-defunct 4.5V DC input on the back.

@@vwestlife Plastic mold making is very expensive. I wouldn't be surprised if the "5 Core" tooling is salvaged from some other radio production line, or perhaps they made a cast of another radio to make theirs?

I remember the same in the 90's here in Canada, then slowly between the 90's and 2010 or so all SW radios seemed to disappear (except on some small portable brands such as Grundig). The one that always fascinated me was an indonesian sw station that was obviously targeted to sailors, as it would have an honest to god daily 'piracy report' warning of areas to avoid. For 10yo me in Canada that was both mind blowing and also was the first time that I think I realised that our news didn't cover a lot of what went on in the world.

Alternatively, making a new lipstick antenna isn't too hard. You can always put the biggest ferrite core it fits in the case. It makes a huge difference