BOOMBOX!

Nostalgia moments….

What did you have?

One of these was a highlight for me;

Graphic equalisers and detachable speakers. Oh yes. Analogue tape counter for extra radnezz.

Had one of these, too;

Twin tape decks, CD and….remote control!

Twin deck Sanyo. Never heard them called “boom” boxes though, the original generally accepted term would send most people nowadays into a froth filled frenzy and get me banned and/or arrested.

I had a Panny like that. Single cassette only though 😡

You gotta know your limits with a boombox…

I have an identical one of those Panasonic twin-deck affairs. Still use it in the garage for listening to the radio while tinkering.

The most radical thing must have been the double tape decks where one tape went behind the other. I still shiver now just thinking about it

2 speakers? PAH!

ERMIGAHD! It’s got a “super woofer”!

One of these bad boys:

Surprisingly loud! Felt like getting something similar a few years ago but they all seem to have been snapped up by builders/painters and trashed 😡

* heads off to trawl eBay…*

Twin deck Sanyo. Never heard them called “boom” boxes though, the original generally accepted term would send most people nowadays into a froth filled frenzy and get me banned and/or arrested.

😆

I’ve still got my Panasonic like the one up there ^^, although, looking at it again, mine is slightly different, a bit more streamlined at the ends; I think mine might have been the previous model.
Sounded terrific very good bass for its size, often wondered if there were some way to hook up an iPod or phone to it possibly in place of one of the cassette drives. Sounded good as a radio too, but since 6Music came along its been sadly ignored.
Actually, thinking about it, the shape rather follows the B&W Zeppelin, it would be rather fun to be able to re-purpose it as a modern-day iPod dock.

Pretty sure a soldering iron, a 5v regulator, a USB socket and a headphone socket will be most of what you need.

Good idea for a project, that.

Still got this bad boy. Still in perfect working order. I think. Wonder if I’ve still got me Grandmaster Flash tapes?

i’ll just leave this here

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_JZcl1kcHDUvWZVe9ly0NA

@ Dudle – Got that exact same stereo in my workshop, although it’s mostly just Radio 4 these days.

The beast.

Like the monolith from 2001, even before you filled it with the 50 D cells it needed to play a CD for 2 minutes.

I had one of those SUPER WOOFER Hitachis in the garage for a while but it died 🙁

CaptainFlashheart – Member

ERMIGAHD! It’s got a “super woofer”!

I had a Hitachi 3-D SuperWoofer (same as that one up there) while at uni – seem to remember it already being several years old by then.

In fact, it’s still at my parents house. I keep meaning to stick it in my garage…..

I had one of these: 8)

I later modded it by velcroing a cd Walkman on the top plugged into the aux input. When I left London, I donated it to Mile End Climbing Wall for the Pump room. Hopefully it saw out a chalky dusty end there whilst the strong boys and girls cranked.

Ah, the great portable stereo wars of 1988…

I had a Hitachi 3-D Super Woofer’ with twin cassette (tape-to-tape recording 8) ) with just the one extra speaker, but almost the same as that one above. Then a mate got a Sharp X-Bass thing which was louder. 😥 Then someone else got something even louder. Then people started driving cars, and the Car Stereo Wars of 1989 began. Some kids went deaf. 😐

The arms race seems to have reversed in recent years, with kids preferring smaller and smaller (tinny and shit) ‘phone speakers or some shitty little bluetooth thing. And of course, playing crap music (we only ever played good tunes of course).

Mind you, you can get some fantastic portable speakers these days, play your ‘phone through them. And with some of the bigger ones, the sound absolutely pisses over those crap, huge, battery-eating monsters of yesteryear.

clodhopper – Member

The arms race seems to have reversed in recent years, with kids preferring smaller and smaller (tinny and shit) ‘phone speakers or some shitty little bluetooth thing. And of course, playing crap music (we only ever played good tunes of course).

Dude! I was just thinking, I think I still have the Xbass in the attic… I could stick a lipo battery on it and just ride around on buses til I find some Youth playing Pitbull or some pish on their iphone speaker, and engage them in one sided aural warfare.

Ah, the old X-Bass. Had one of those and my dad used to turn the mains breaker off if I had it on too loud 😳

“Dude! I was just thinking, I think I still have the Xbass in the attic… I could stick a lipo battery on it and just ride around on buses til I find some Youth playing Pitbull or some pish on their iphone speaker, and engage them in one sided aural warfare.”

Do it man, do it! Yes! I like your style! 😀

‘I see your Pitbull and Beyonce, and raise you Run DMC’.

Actually, what currently available product would give you the equivalent oomph for such a venture?

Lemme hear you say fight the power.

Though tbh if I could do it without getting murdered by the police, that’d be a bonus.

“Dude! I was just thinking, I think I still have the Xbass in the attic… I could stick a lipo battery on it and just ride around on buses til I find some Youth playing Pitbull or some pish on their iphone speaker, and engage them in one sided aural warfare.”

Brilliant!

I had something like the below from Goodmans. I still remember the disappointment of getting home to realise it had no plug and it was past 5pm so no hardware shops would still be open. Dad ended up taking a plug off one of the lounge table lights. Fun times. It later got upgraded with Mission speakers and Marantz cd player on the line in.

I never had a proper boom box though.

My fave tape for playing (when not recording the charts obviously).

Ha! I was playing this at the same time:

I had one of these in my student days. 8)

BOOM!

I got one of these off my Gran for my 18th.

She called it a Gateaux Buster. In all fairness though it probably could have detonated a cake when cranked up to 11 on the twin volume throttles.

“I had one of these in my student days. “

Woof. That’s practically military hardware. 😯

I think this could be a thing: old gits on busses with boomboxes. But as above, what are the current equivalents in terms of power and portability?

‘I didn’t fight in two Stereo wars so that young imps like you can play shitty music on your tinny little ‘phone; have some proper old skool techno, and have it loud!’

Did it have seperate volume sliders for each speaker? That was genius when they started doing that- made no sense whatsoever, especially with integrated speakers but it felt so badass. You can imagine the conversation:

Designer: “Let’s give it 2 volume controls, one for each side”
Engineer: “But there’s no reason to do that. It’ll add a load of complexity and all it adds is the ability to screw up the volume. And everyone will always have them both set the same”
Designer: “Give it a try eh?”
…
Engineer: “OK, so I built this stupid dual volume control. It’s exactly as pointless as I thought”
Designer hands Engineer a copy of Straight Outta Compton. “Put this on”.
Engineer: “I don’t see how this helps”
Designer: “Now slowly push both sliders up to full, at the same time, using both hands”
Engineer:THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!1!!!1oNNEEEENNN

Goodman Powermaster here, had flashing lights and everyfing.

I’m running a 3d Super woofer in my garage/bike workshop

My dad still uses daily his Goodmans Powerbox. Not sure if 8) or 😕

“Never heard them called “boom” boxes though, the original generally accepted term would send most people nowadays into a froth filled frenzy and get me banned and/or arrested.”

Do you mean ‘wog box’*? Given that it was actually a racist term applied to something where the user would be assumed to be of a particular ethnic ‘type’, I think it’s quite a good thing that such a term is no longer generally accepted. And far from descending into a ‘froth filled frenzy’ that you imagine, I think most people would recognise it as an archaic, outdated term born of ignorance and bigotry, and be happy to consign it to the dustbin of history, where it belongs. You may of course yearn for such halcyon days, but fortunately, most of us have moved on somewhat.

“Never heard them called “boom” boxes though, the original generally accepted term would send most people nowadays into a froth filled frenzy and get me banned and/or arrested.”

I was a big fan of the Graphic Equaliser. The more sliders the better. Especially if accompanied by flashing lights of different colours. I once shunned a sonically superior Sony Walkman in favour of some Dixons special just because it had a graphic equaliser. 🙄 😳

*See also: Ghetto Blaster, Brixton Suitcase etc

My dad still uses daily his Goodmans Powerbox. Not sure if or

Only way to decide this…..

Does he listen to “Hip hop and rapping in the house” in the house?

Heh, when I was trying to find a pic of mine the first Google hit was this thread…

Mine was this one

Still got it in the shed – 35 years old this September…