Beer and Boomboxes!

Lord Hobo Boombox Sampler, available now!

 

You still have to suck on the bottle for the good stuff (boomsauce), I wonder if people find "hobo" offensive these days?

I can't help but stare at that crappy box, LED VU, Analog VU, three eqs? Somebody messed up bad on that design.

 

Back in the saddle with the Hitachi TRK-8100H! Sure it looks like a little runt but this is a pretty nice midi boombox. I keep checking the battery compartment to see if I left batteries in it because it's so heavy. This model is only AM/FM but the tuner is very sensitive and picks up stations really good. For a USA release it even has a MIC mixing input, kinda rare around here. I could see this design blown up 2x this size and still look great but this might be the best looking midi boombox with traditional styling. Sound-wise it would be nice at the beach or a camp fire but not hifi sonics.

Oh yea, it goes great with Brass Foundry, I'm slurping on a Question 63 IPA, fresh off of flooding the outdoor ice rink.

 

This is a classic box with all the right stuff but yep, it kind of sounds like muffled towel paper. It is unmolested after 40+ years but I'm not impressed with the sonics.

What about the big Perdisco's?

 

Just picked up this gem locally, the Sharp RD-688AV, one of the coolest boomboxes ever made! But wait you say, no radio? no antennas? no battery tray? Who cares, it still cranks pretty loud and is super heavy, I have to believe it's pushing 10 watts a channel. Kind of a forerunner to today's bluetooth speakers, it has both AUX and Phone in. We got lot's of snow this week, I'll be throwing the Tripel Karmeliet in the snow bank for a fast chill tonight.

 

I think I found at least three versions of this boombox?

Radio, we don't have DAB over here, we still have AM/FM and I listen to both all of the time. For some reason I have a hard time listening to solid streaming music and like a little break every few songs. We have one station 89.3 (The Current, they livestream) that sounds like it's from the 80's with real DJs, talking, interviews, upcoming shows, etc. I miss the pre-Clear Channel days when bands would get interviewed at 4 pm and then head to the concert venue for the big show.

 

Our HD FM might be like your DAB, it piggy-backs off of the FM Station and depending on how many feeds, the quality gets worse, so most are one or two extra stations but they can go more. I finally got a car with an HD reciever, first time I've listened to it because they don't make it easy to get the proper recievers. With streaming internet I think most people kind of forgot about HD and they just use their phone in the car or subscribe to Sirius.

I had a great year with the boomers, found some very nice rare models, I'll keep posting!

 

I'm starting to see more of those 90's Panasonics going up for sale but there must be some collector market because they're getting decent money for them.

 

I never see the good ones, maybe people are still using them, I used to see a ton of crappy ones for the 90's but even those aren't around as much these days.