Actually a Charity Shop haul today for a whole £5.50. Not surprisingly the Walkman doesn't work and is missing its battery cover but what can you expect for £3.50 ? I'm not a Jazz fan but was intrigued by Natwest (a large U.K. Bank) putting out a professionally made cassette. I just read the inlay card and it was made for a Charity, with a previous recording raising £30000. It would take them a lot of plays to raise that on Youtube today. The used Boots cassette was for nostalgia as I used to used their blue C90s with a similar picture. The same shop had a larger number of Talking Book cassettes but I'm not really into those,
Just picked this up for a couple dollars! I've always wanted a Zerostat and the white version is killer. This set has the D3 which I think is older than the D4 most of us are familar with. It also had a Technics (by Panasonic) Overhang Guage.
I found this beauty at my local flea market, a National Panasonic RS-7490S from 1970, a very early boombox. The owner bought it new at the Navy PX on Midway Island in 1972! We talked a little and I mentioned that these are super-rare over here. The design is from when boomboxes didn't really have a look yet but he said the recording feature of this one was used alot, which would have been lots of fun back then. This is huge! 6" x 9" speakers and heavy, they don't look like much in photos but it's really impressive up close. The door on the 2nd speaker is for cassette storage and everything is nicely finished, this was a high end deck when released. Yes I did pony up and take it home, I'm a sucker for 70's boomers, while not the best looking, they make up for it in quality construction and with our local classic rock station sticker as a bonus. The two units "clasp" together at the bottom aluminum male/female channel, and the top bar is a pull-up handle, I have to believe the designers had a lot of fun with this. Unfortunately it's only for transport when put together.
I found this handsome fella at the thrift store (or charity shop as my UK brothers and sisters call it). Very good condition and only needed a belt replacement to run good as new. $2.99 was such a steal. it almost felt wrong to buy it at this price
While working I stopped at a garage sale with nothing exciting, on a whim I asked if they had any boomboxes or Walkmans and guess what was in the basement! It works on the crusty old batteries, haven't checked the belts yet. It also came with the leather case.
I was out working and stopped in a favorite record/electronics shop, grabbed some cool stuff including this Sony SB-300 Tapecorder Selector, thought it might be nice for multiple tape decks or R2R's.
Finally, I own a Grundig! The Transistor 3005 multi-band radio. I've always wanted one of these European Multi-Bands with a ton of buttons and this is just fine. While the tuning cord is broke, you can still tune in individual stations with the push/rotate buttons on the left. Some of the lights are out but it's a mini tuning dial on each preset! Now that's what I call engineering. This might have the best tuner of anything I own, it's pulling in a ton of FM stations. Unfortunately the little tuner dials are hard to tell what station your on, they are only an inch wide (2.54 cm). The sound is very nice for a radio only unit, music in the other room sounds as nice as a normal boombox.
I presume you have looked at https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_transistor_3005.html The unfamiliar name is explained by it being the "export model". All the European Grundigs from around then had names ending in Boy. https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_ocean_boy_210.html I have a couple of Yacht Boys. I have been trying to find the price of these radios new. I know they were expensive. You will have to go looking at old adverts in World Radio History as Google isn't helping I did find https://radiofidelity.com/grundig-radio-history/ and original catalogue page https://www.hifi-archiv.info/Grundig/1970-Revue/47.JPG I have been busy with Google translate Definitely from the age of "Flower Power" and expensive electronics
Yesterday was the local Hamfest Amateur Radio Rally. It attracts quite a lot of general electronics and audio enthusiasts. There were a few early 1980s boomboxes and personal stereos there, but low end models from Sharp and Sanyo which I didn't think were special enough to merit a photo. I thought this cassette sale was The best tapes were TDK Ds. I did buy the only sealed cassettes the seller had; five TDK FEs for £5 and a pre recorded Bonnie Tyler tape for 20p. This Eagle Amplifier took me back to my schooldays In 1975 the "house" I was in was the only one with a proper Hi Fi system made using Eagle components for pupils to use in the lunch hour. The other three houses had things like Fidelity music centres rated at 3W RMS per channel. For some reason I always think of Blue Oyster Cult when thinking about what music got played. It must have been somebodies favourite. Do schools now have Bluetooth Speakers or are individuals all listening to different things with earbuds? I will have to ask me sister who teaches a similar age group in a school.
Maybe not you but I would have liked to have seen the low end sharp and Sanyo boomboxes that are still available for sale. Allow me to share a picture of something I pulled off the shelf and repaired. Played and made a video today. It's an oddity by Sony, cfs-s30 a. Soundy Auto reverse AM FM cassette 9-volter padded boombox.
I will take more photos next year. There was a Sharp that looked to be brand new and was complete with the original box. However, unless it has personal memories I find it hard to get excited by something like this, even if it is now forty years old (where did those forty years go ?)
Not really a boot sale find, the owner knew I loved portable radios and gave me a few, this is the Westminster 1427 Multi-Band Radio Receiver, probably originally sold at a department or thrift store. The pop up cover always looks neat on these but this is a fairly light weight version, a fraction of the weight of something like a Zenith Transatlantic. This one is fun because it has a CB band, I don't think that's very common, the aircraft band used to be fun listening to local traffic coming in for landings. You can see the tips of the dual antennas, for an entry level unit, at least they blinged it out.
A real curb find! This was sitting next to furniture and a newer Sony HT Amp (nothing special) at the curb. The Tascam DA-30 MK II DAT Player. Everything looks like it works but I think I only have one DAT tape and it might be stuck in my Yamaha which hasn't been turned on for a long time and now won't open. I was driving by and spotted the stack and thought I should look just in case, turned out to be a great idea. At first I thought it was a "Pro" model cassette deck used at the local rinks for figure skating but it's real DAT deck......
My only encounter with DAT tapes was these. I think they turned up in a pile of junk donated to the Ham Radio Club. No use to me or anyone else there so I sold them on eBay to someone who hopefully could make use of them. I have never had a DAT recorder so have no idea what was on them.
1/2 the fun is listening to what is on them, over here DAT was mostly for Pro recording, I didn't know anyone with a player, the first one I saw was around 98 and outside of the two I have, it was the only one.
I have a Sony 57ES DAT deck. My dentist gave it to me because he knows I like the vintage audio stuff. But I never tried it, I have no tapes. I once had a data DAT tape, but I didn't dare to inject it. I was too afraid that the tape would stick and I would take up a hobby again, tinkering with DAT players
While I haven't seen the inside of one outside of photos, I'm pretty sure they're just like a VHS/Beta insides. If something bad happens you can pop the top and have great access to the tape and head. I used to work with VHS cleaning tapes, the biggest threat is the amount of shred the tapes leave behind, they need to be cleaned regularly.
