Found this little blurb in Stereoplay from 1979, sorry can't read it and it doesn't look like there's pricing. Edit, it looks like pricing is 9500 Mark? So around $4300 USD, am I calculating this right?
Adam Savage and I have similar backgrounds, my shop would like like his if it was cleaned and I got some sitting heavy-metal started and moved. One of these days he'll have a real boombox on the show. It looks like he's into Nagra's and he's shares some interesting CIA involvement with these units. He has a few other videos with his little recorders.
I don't know if we ever talked about the portable Sony EL-D8 Elcaset Tape Deck from 1980, very rare and beautiful, anybody own one of these?
I forgot about my National RS-4400 from 1975, after seeing Reli's Toshiba I searched out these rare models from the mid-70's. This one works great even though it only goes to 90 MHz on the FM band. These were a staggering 74,800 Yen back then! While this is a cool hybrid boombox, I'd place it in the field recorder section, it has two mic inputs, the shoulder strap usually means it was meant be used on the go, and it has all the controls on the top surface. I think it will clean up nicely and just needs some decent antennas.
I'm not familar with this one but Korting also had a similar model, this is from an expired Etsy Listing. https://www.etsy.com/listing/128799...how_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details
Nakamichi 550 from 1976, I won one on ebay a few years ago when they were affordable but she decided not to send it to me. I've had a few wins where they probably realized they were worth much more.
I had a few opportunities to score a 550. Each time I decided to shy off due to the failure-anxiety I have with them. It's a great machine, don't get me wrong. It trounces my personal favourite; the TCD-5M on SQ if not portability and some of my favourite bootlegs were recorded on a 550, but when they go wrong they go very wrong and it's incredibly difficult to put them right again unfortunately.
Most of my stuff is shelf queens since I have quite a few and I can only listen to one at a time. I do try to have something up for a cleaning and testing but the complexity of the field recorders scares me. I worked on one of the little Marantz/Superscopes a few years ago, those things are packed full of electronics and a million screws. As usual, everything is easy to work on except for the belt which takes hours to get to.
An interesting unit from ASC from 1974, the sonics must have been the big selling point for thise later in the game.
