Well that's settled it, I'm moving to Japan! Everything I love to collect is there! There is a guy on youtube who visits the retro games stores in Akihabara, seems there are a lot to choose from with wildly varying prices. I'd love to see some of the retro toy stores too, think I'd be buying quite a few Mazinger-style robots to bring home
I brought back another AIWA 22 System with components that I didn't have and one of the mega-small UNIX Marantz Boomboxes along with some books. I was getting things for a few people and my bags were getting heavy, thank goodness for roller bags. I've got a soft spot for vintage toys lupogtiboy and there was some really interesting 60's-80's toys there plus lots of stores selling the newer Gundam Figurines.
Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara was a really cool experience, there might be something similar in the US but I don't know where it is. The closest I can think of is Best Buy and we have the headquarters here but they're a fraction of the size of this location. I'll make the pain go away fast, here's the personal cassette player and boombox sections. If there was something better I'm sure they would have had it but I was a little bummed out.
The home all in one mini-stereos were much cooler and the price reflects the higher quality, starting at $200.00 USD and going up there was some nice looking units, they just needed a handle and battery compartment. Edit: I'm just watching Techmoan's Newest Video 2/10/19 and he's in the market for one of these systems. Too bad he did go here, I think he would have like to try out these versions which seem to be nicer than the one he settled on.
Mini-stereos were plentiful, this section was set up for hooking your computer/mp3 files to the line in and having your digital jukebox. A lot of the equipment footprints seemed to be the right size to set a laptop on. Yamaha always had different, yet elegant equipment, it was nice to see minimal changes in their design. Most of these systems were hooked up and they sounded great, I'm pretty sure they were using Foobar2000 for the interface.
A beautiful marantz HD-DAC1 The prices go from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, there's something for everyone. This TEAC NR-7CD is interesting, an amp with built in CD player, these go for $4000.00 USD. The build quality is outstanding with a blend of retro and modern. You can try out all of the equipment on top of the display cases without a hovering sales guy.
Sounds like you are having a great time. We went to BIC camera (near Sibuya ?) which was very similar, but more recently someone wrote that that has closed down. Has anyone been to Edgeware Road, London recently. That used to be full of independant electrical shops selling strange imports, but i havent been there for at least a decade, and the shops weren't anything like as big as that.
B&W, Marantz, sharing the same room almost like my storage unit, so much goodness in this little room but wait there's more. The feeling of the old Akihabara was soaking in me, so much cool equipment, all of the big names, none of the BPC we have in the US. I almost pulled the trigger but I knew I already had a full trunk for the ride home. So we spent a lot of time just listening to everything and even through digital files the equipment was outstanding. This room might have been the best, McIntosh paired with JBL, I had to pull my buddies out of here, not only was the system beautiful but the music sounded great. They turned it on so I don't know the source, I think it was off of a laptop. The little tiny JBL speakers are in every store and bar, I didn't take a photo but they are around $600 USD and sound really good considering their size.
....and lastly, some of the other stuff. This room had the equipment I see if I go into an audio store, I didn't look closely but it seemed entry level. It's nice to see that silver faced equipment is back in style.
I know, Mister X, where are the boomboxes and Walkmans? We tried getting over to Dubby Mad but he has weird hours and we got tied up doing everything else. We talked with him by phone and he gave us times he'd be in the shop but something else always came up. I also love retro products including cars so we went to a mall with cars decorated like it was from yesteryear. Anybody want to see a 1970 Nissan Skyline 2000 GT-R? I've never seen one before, pretty cool, the few in the US are going for silly money. How about the 1969 Toyota 2000GT? The closet I've got to this is watching You Only Live Twice. The first Japanese Car to get over a million USD a couple years ago at auction. There's more, if you like cars, let me know I can post them.
Astro Boy, do you know where we can find a good arcade? With pinball machines? In the old days I used to stage my Walkmans on my pinballs, things changed and now they're in storage. There's nothing like the clack..clack..clack of a mechanical pinball machine firing up.
Wait, I think I see something on the other side of the room, could it be? I found some, a bunch of QT's on top of the Pachinkos! Not only that but they were just sitting up there, I picked one up and checked it out, pretty cool....Very nice and in great condition.
We did make it to The Waltz in Tokyo, my companion lives a few blocks over so it was an easy walk. This is a beautiful shop with a ton of cassettes, books and vintage boomboxes and Walkmans. He even has a tape listening station with a boombox. The tapes are all meticulously displayed and even the used tapes are repackaged. In case your wondering these places all seem to have barn doors that slide open.
We saw a lot of other neat things, maybe I'll post some of those photos when I get a chance. I thought this was cool, this clothing shop has two Banky's on cardboard. They said they got them when he was starting out and now they are worth super-silly money.
I almost forgot, some corporate headquarters, here's Sony. We didn't have time to do any tours so you only get this shot. Sanyo's not too exciting building.
I got lucky Cameron, I'm in MPLS and for some reason, nobody was going there so the trip was ultra lo-miles. My buddy said it would take a few weeks to decompress and he wasn't kidding, he said take a million photos cuz you'll forget half of what you see. The good news is food and drink are kind of cheap compared to Minneapolis where it's getting out of hand. $10.00 USD for a mega-sushi dinner with all you can eat ginger was outstanding, $12.00 USD for all you can drink happy hour (two-hours) was a bonus, and places like this were all over. I thought it was going to be over the top expensive but even the train was around $1.50 a leg, I didn't even max out my train card. For travel, this ended up being a budget trip believe it or not....
Tokyo prices were a big pleasant surprise for us as well. We spent less in ten days than we did in three days in Venice the same year. With a translator I doubt if Mr X made any ordering mistakes. Two I remember was thinking I was ordering Cola and ending up with iced tea and getting what I thought would be a cool can of drink from a vending machine which came out almost too hot to touch. However, the railways were no problem at all as all Japanese announcements are repeating in English.
Damn @Mister X those are some great shots and looks like a fun trip! It always boggled my mind how the NES was bigger than the Famicom despite it being pretty much the same thing in a different case (guess the error-prone front loader wasted space). All of those stores look like places I could spent days in! Have you by any chance also seen any minidiscs being sold there? Articles on the net claimed Japan still sells them in stores, just like CDs, so for me one of the goals of a trip there would be to stack up on them for cheap while doing some sightseeing. I also wondered if they still have stores that sell DAT/DDS tapes and DAT walkmans when they still got analogue equipment in some. Honestly, the temptation to go there hasn't been greater for me yet! I wonder, how's communication going? You mentioned train stations also repeat announcements in English. However, my main worry about such a trip would be getting lost and finding nobody to give me pointers where to go.
