Took quite awhile but I’ve finally tracked down the low-end GPX ( AKA Centurion) boombox I had as a kid in 1985. If anyone has one I’d sure appreciate buying it. Please let me know! GPX 900X A Centurion AKA
That's actually not a bad looking unit. Probably sounds better than a ton of other junk thanks to those top firing speakers. And I always rate anything having a single cassette deck very highly. Pet peeve of mine are those big ugly oversized double cassette decks. Every boom box suddenly had to have double decks. You know, for making garbage sounding copies of copies of copies
Oh man, my Fisher PH-M77 is crying hearing that and my Sansui CP-99W is getting mad. Some are works of art but most are cheap junk but in the end a lot of boomers went low-end.
I’ve had quite the unexpected experience researching off-brand BBX’s from the early to mid 1980’s. There were a lot of Asian manufacturers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea - quietly making capable budget audio gear without fanfare throughout the 1980’s. Back in the day, I wrote these second tier radios off as “crap”. Up to that point I had only owned electronics from established brands like GE, Realistic, and Panasonic. That all changed when I was gifted a brand new Centurion E901X in 1984. I remember feeling disappointed. I was “stuck” with a piece of crap radio. Over a period of months my opinion changed. Build quality was solid. At least as good as Sanyo’s budget offerings. Sound quality was very good…considerably better than expected. In the end, I realized that it offered good value for the money. I moved away in 1988 and the radio disappeared. Didn’t give it much thought until a few months ago. Decided to track one down and buy it. I thought I found it on eBay. From memory, it looked a lot like a Lenoxx Sound CT-772G I came across on eBay so I bought it. A week later, I dug up 2 photos and discovered it was NOT the Lenoxx Sound. Still, I was super impressed with the Lenoxx Sound CT-772G made in Taiwan by Unitech. They also released a sister radio as the Unitech CX-800. These radios are simple, solid workhorses. Their simplicity has equated to fully functional machines decades later. Mine is 110% functional. Works like new. Sound quality is genuinely fantastic. A bit thin on bass but great clarity and separation. Oddly, it has become one of my favorite radios. I am REALLY looking forward to finding my Centurion or its AKA the GPX!
Did you look up the FCC#, it should have the manufacturer. I thought Unitech was Korean, did you find some with Taiwan Markings? Don't forget about Singapore, they got the first wave of off-shoring in the 70's.
Thanks for the info Mister X! The Lenoxx Sound CT-772G is marked “made in Taiwan” in the above photo. It was manufactured by Unitech. The FCC number on the back matches the sister Unitech unit, the CX-800. Even the fonts and layout of the tags are the same between the CT-772G and the CX-800!
I don't know if you were around when The Vintage Knob was one of the best stereo websites. The owner, Axel, also had a short lived forum with a ton of great historical information including the Web of Japanese Contractors, here's an archive.org link to the main post, there's two total. The original site is still around, it's just a fraction of what it once was. The rumor was that he spent a small fortune on audio brochures, some very rare. www.thevintageknob.org https://web.archive.org/web/2016030...knob.org/tvk_talk/viewtopic.php?f=1477&t=2395 You might find some other connections in the thread.
Here's the Singapore Newspaper Website I've milked, The Strait Times is in English and it has a ton of historical manufacturing information. https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/browse/straitstimes
Wow! Thanks for the leads…I’m excited to dive in. This entire second tier Asian BBX history is fascinating.
Sometimes it is good to zoom in on a product cuz if you put in something like "cassette" you'll get thousands of hits but something like "GPX Cassette" will sometimes narrow it down to just a few. Don't forget to use google translate for foreign words, it gets much harder, especially Asian Papers where I can pretty much only go by the photos.
Thanks for the tips. I’ve been using the following: GPX boombox GPX FM cassette GPX cassette GPX detachable GPX 900X All of the above but with Centurion as the brand Centurion E901X Any other suggestions appreciated!
I just sit and scan through 1000's of pages. I actually enjoy the 60's-80's newspapers/magazines, not just the electronics but the whole lifestyle and even the graphic design is timeless.
Here's a fun one, The Boston Phoenix, kind of a mini-Rolling Stone Magazine. Lots of bands, equipment and a splash of politics. https://archive.org/details/pub_boston-phoenix Colleges usually publish their newspapers online now, there's hundreds of those for free out there.
The plot thickens… Look closely - Centurion boomboxes were distributed by GPX! No wonder there’s an identical unit under both brand names!
