Sanyo 1969, the red lines are from the website, the ads/articles will link to another page if clicked on.
From 1969, interesting that they are trying to figure out which controls are better, personally I think the joystick is the best!
My forum pal already bought this Grundig C100 and rolled out a video about this, it's in Russian but subtitles would help.
That's a long video! I've got a little Grundig Surprise coming and another first gen I'll share soon!
Found on Japanese Wikiwand, it looks like the blog from the AIWA Engineer is gaining ground and the Crown might be recognized as the first boombox, here's my thread with a link to his blog https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/you-want-aiwa-history-you-get-aiwa-history.9433/ This is a cool entry for boomboxes with a ton more information than below, a great read. https://www-wikiwand-com.translate...._x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true
I had to google Sony CFM-8120, a really neat looking little unit, this sold on yahoo auctions for nine dollars and it's from 1970. https://yahoo.aleado.com/lot?auctionID=k1118855136
Here some discussion about the first radiocassetterecorders. Via google translate. https://otowacreation-co-jp.transla...l=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc&_x_tr_hist=true https://otowacreation-co-jp.transla...l=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc&_x_tr_hist=true
The author of https://aiwa.5volt.jp/tpr-101/ makes a great case for the Crown being the first, I think he was the one that said they were all waiting for transports from Philips but Philips didn't have enough production. One of my big questions is why didn't more R2R have radios? There's a small few but not many, I wondered if maybe there was too much interference. Your links mention a Hitachi Version in 1963, the Bellsona 398.
Here some screenshots of an extensive overview of R2R recorders from just before 1966. Screenshots are from an Swedish Radio and Television magazine from 1965. The Belsona 398 is also mentioned. It seems that there are indeed not many r2r recorders with radio at this time. The source scan can be found here; https://www.aef.se/Amatortidningar/Radio_och_Television/radio_television_1965_10-ocr.pdf These are pages 58 upto 65. It gives a nice picture of what was available as recording machines at the time. In 1965.
I found some (Dutch) advertisements for a Sony TC-103 in magazines from 1962. The Sony combined a recorder with a radio and could record from the radio. It was an AC machine, it did not run on batteries. Looking at how things were in 1965, the release of an hybrid machine in 1962 did not create an hype at all like the first radio compact cassette recorders did. On the TC-103 the tuner section can be seen on the bottom left side of the machine.
They are so rare which is strange because I would think people would love to record off the radio. As a little kid we used to record using cheap piano key recorders, waiting all night listening to the countdown for that one song....
In the late 1960s we used to visit a couple my father had remained friends with since he lodged there in the 1950s. The husband had decided to take up "Audio" as a hobby and had bought and set up audio equipment in a spare room so he could tape from the radio, edit tapes (which required a splicing block) etc. As an aside the same guy was the first person we knew to get a colour TV. I would guess that back then it was considered to be a serious hobby, a bit like making cine films. It was the radio cassette that brought a similar level of convenience as Instamatic cameras. Even then Radio Cassettes weren't cheap. A student teacher working with my Mother got one for her 21st birthday. My Mother was so impressed she spent over a weeks wages on her own.
well, i guess some clever little fellow had to invent the radio-recorder first there were allready cabinets with radio/tt and integrated r2r's, were you could record directly and in good quality. when they started with portable r2r's, they weren't meant to be used for personal entertainment, but for professional recording. also they would have been to heavy, especially when used with piles of mono-cells. when the launched the Walkman in 1979, they allready had reliable, portable cassette-recorders since the very beginning and it took 14 years untill somebody had the idea to make a lifestyle out of it... i remember sitting in the mid 70'ies with a battery-powered cassette recorder in our lounge on the couch, recording music with the built-inmicrophone from the radio. i hated it so much, when someone, especially my sister, entered the room and started babbling like a penguin
