This was a completely over the top restore & for one reason..............!! This was my teen years stereo from 1982 to early 1984 & I loved it!! Walked into Curry's (A UK High Street Retailer) & handed over £85 exactly which was the exact price (No £84.99 here) very unusual but very vivid memories of it pissing down with rain & dark, the welcoming brightly lit shop & the excitement of getting my first half decent stereo radio recorder still lingers with me all these years later..........& proudly running home to my dingy run down accommodation as I had left home by then due to issues we cannot divulge here! Stopped along the way to buy the latest Kool & The Gang - Something Special album on tape too!! Soon had her up & running & was very surprised how good it was back then! A somewhat scarce generic model, I have seen a Watson RR-572 which is identical just cosmetic changes & another obscure brand I just can't remember now............... My Triumph Srr-5000 went everywhere I went always loaded up with 8 'D' cell batteries & often blasting the current top 40! lol - I still have cassettes recorded on my original machine that survive perfectly & play well! Now onto the present day: Over the last 5 years I have bought 4 of these, all promising good condition/working etc, we all know the real score here of course None were too clever & only through carelessness & misuse, I was going to give up when I found one just last week, not working but it had a good casing & nice straight speaker grilles - No problem I thought, gut them all out clean the casing in warm soapy water, re-spray the 4 speaker grilles & use my already serviced deck that I had saved should this day ever arrive! Both of the 2 scrappers I had kept had very cloudy tuning glass panels, & I mean beyond saving cloudy, so it was lucky that the new arrival was good......... These are built very well with a decent tape deck, Dolby NR & nice led meters along with manual recording control, a decent 4 band tuner & real woofers & separate tweeters - No wonder I was so happy as a stereo crazy teenager Everything pluggable & therefore easily interchangeable, it was a case of making the best out of what I had & a day later we have a stunning example of what was to be a major part of my life at that very impressionable time of my life - I could never have asked for more than what I now have...........& it works & performs exactly as I remember it did in 1982!! I always loved the so silvery look of this model & it was the only really decent radio recorder sold under the Triumph brand - I know as I own all the other not so good ones & there were a few!! None of them that Mickey Mouse but none with a good stereo Dolby deck & all pressed steel no market quality deck in here!! A few more machines to sort out yet, but for now I am really happy to have my teenage stereo back with me & all those memories.......... Et Viola!!
That is like night and day. The first few photos made it look kind of generic but once you cleaned it up it's actually a pretty cool looking box. Your detailing skills are very impressive, how long does it take to do a box like this?
A great find and restoration Nick. Do I recall a story that you took home and tried several of the Triumph boomboxes over a couple of weeks before ending up with this top of the range one ? Also what did you replace it with in 1984 ? For the youngsters £84 in 1982 = £281 in todays money. This is how I keep calculating equivalents. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation Of course, the only phones (which seem to be what youngsters spend their money on these days) back in 1982 in the UK were the landline ones rented from the fledgling British Telecom, and Nick probably thought £85 for a Boombox with Dolby was a bargain.
Made in Japan - that always sounds sweet, it's a pity they didn't mention by whom? Which OEM manufacturer?
This took a day & a couple of hours next day to replace grilles with resprayed ones....... Alex, I don't kmow who made this one, have seen at least 2 AKA's but a pretty rare bird this is no question! To get Dolby & manual recording for £85 was indeed amazing in 1982
