In my favorite TV show X-Files there is an episode called “Ice” - season 1 (S01E08) Actor Steve Hytner plays a geologist Dr. Denny Murphy. The character loves listening to baseball records on his portable player. But I can hardly recognize the brand of his player. It seems like some Coby and Panashiba brands, sometimes similar to the Walkman sport series, but cannot recognize the exact brand and model. Can anybody help?
Well on front it reads DBBS...Philips had a complete yellow sport series faking Sony's Sports walkmans. I think the red band on this walkman is to cover up the word 'Philips' My first guess would be Philips but which model i can't tell
Hi, it looks a lot like this... and it's for sale at the link Sterio radio cassette player - CD - Musique
Wow, thank you very much for finding. Interesting fact, there is another brand and model with the same panel IMA IWR-30 Looks like there is one OEM company building the same players for different companies...
I've found Panashiba on Ebay and bought it, but unfortunately it didn't received and ebay made refunded. But there is interesting details There are photos of boxes of Panashiba We can find a model "SX-921" Recently I've received IMA IWR-30 I opened player. I noticed "SX-921" printed on board. It seems to be Panashiba SX 921 was released firstly, and IMA IWR-30 was released latter based on SX 921. Or maybe both players had one OEM? Interesting fact, there is all weather radio IWR-15 Seems to be previous model by IMA in IWR series. I bought it and if it received, I could type about it more There is huge question, which year IMA IWR-30 and Panashiba SX-921 were released? Question is opened
If I had to guess it would right around when the show was made 1993. We call the multiple units that look the same but different branding "AKA's" (also known as). IMA is found around here, a lot of these units are bought in bulk, the manufacturer puts a name on it and boxes it for the customer. I used to have catalogs around the office from Hong Kong and Taiwan with dozens of late 1990's boomboxes that could be bought in bulk with your name plastered on them. Even in Japan, the amount of parts and finished units sold to other companies and rebranded is staggering. CEC is a great example, they seemed to have built a very large percentage of turntables during the golden days of audio.
Thank you for your message. I noticed no “Panashiba” brand on the seller box, only model “SX-921” but there is a Panashiba player inside (according to seller photos). On the Panashiba device there aren't any model names on the box, only brand name. But IMA has model number Inside my IMA IWR-30 there is text “SX-921” printed on board. It seems to be an OEM who developed the platform “SX-921” (with no brand box?) and, as you said, other companies bought this platform and sold it with their brand name like Panashiba and IMA. If I luckily find Panashiba and can buy it, I want to see inside, is there “SX-921” printed on the board. If yes, it will seem to be fact with “SX-921” OEM tag. Also it hard to find any brochure, catalogue and commercial about players based on SX-921 platform
One of the best parts of vintage audio is that the big manufacturers had user manuals, service manuals and a ton of catalogs even breaking down to individual units. The big manufacturers might even buy from someone else (like the Sansui Mini I posted made by JVC or some Chinese Company) and still make a cool brochure like it was their own. Then you get to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore and their strategy seemed to be more of "a-la-carte" meaning the buyers would select parts from different companies and find someone to assemble it and brand it. Very little brochures or service manuals are available, they were built to make money for the seller and multi-language manuals cost a lot of money.
I’ve got IMA IWR-15 (all weather radio) - the previous model of the IWR-30 cassette tape player. It seems to be good idea to provide facts about IMA IWR series in this thread I took photos of this radio in all sides and attached here for history Now we know that the IWR-15 and IWR-30 were produced in China. If we pay attention to the radio's sticker, there is (GL) mark on the right bottom side. Maybe it is an abbreviation of factory? Actually if we focus on the IWR-30 cassette tape player we can see the (SH) mark. If I’m not mistaken these marks are specified on the factory where devices were built? There are not any dictionary which could help to understand mark -> factory According to marks we can say that the IWR-15 and IWR-30 were produced in different factories? Actually it hard to say release year but if this model was the previous of cassette player IWR-30, it produces between 1989-1993 years (1993 - when the x-files episode was released) Unfortunately I don’t have the box or any other documents, but I found photos of sealed radio on the Internet We can see BAR-code: 77283 82158 077 - for US and Canada marekt 28382 - Company prefix - owner of IMA 15 - device model number 5 - control sum I’ve got this device from Davis, Oklahoma. We can say that IMA IWR-15 produced for the US and Canada market. Good news for this research. I’ve found a Panashiba (looks like IMA IWR-30) with a box. I purchased it from Europe and it’s on its way to me. Hope, I’ll get it soon and could give proof for one OEM for IMA and Panashiba.
