Has anyone seen one of these before? I just ordered it on Epay, and it looks pretty cool! It has to be a Japan only model, but it has English labels on the knobs/buttons etc.
Nice box, you'll be able to tell if it was for Japan by the voltage requirements. The back will say 100 volts if it is JDM. My buddy in Toyko says it's still ok to use US Voltage, and I have, but I've bought a converter wall wart on ebay just to be safe.
beautiful machine, but it has two issues to be considered for my collection: its a 3-piecer and double-cassette. Beyond that: Beautiful!!!
Sit down, look at the symmetry....think of the possibilities. I just went over to the wall of badass and all of them are three-piecers except for my little TPR-950. Sure there was tons of crap in the 80's upping the "buy-me" quotient by being three pieces but when you look beyond that, a lot of cool units will come out of the woodwork. JVC built a ton of mini-stereos, they actually were more than three piece but still the same thing. And let's not forget, without three units, there would have been the famous meeting of the Russian and American Space Programs....
The infamous faux three-piecer. I'm looking at the controls a little closer, do you know what the "FM Wireless" band is and the "Loudness/Editor" button looks interesting. It looks like you can overdub your music with an FM Microphone.
After spending som time replacing the cassette belts, and deep cleaning, I got to figure out all the features of this thing. Yep, the first clue would be the tape counter in the fake right speaker box as well as the power cord going into the right side. The FM Wireless is actually for picking up TV channels back when they were analog but it’s usekess now. Editor is just a record mute which happens to be part of the loudness on/ off. You can mix the radio with the tape when the mixing switch is in the On position and there is a mixing knob that adjusts the level of the radio sound. It has two 1/8 headphone outputs, sub and main(whatever that means), in back, 1/4 mic input, (for karaoke night), two 1/8 left and right mic inputs, line in/line out rca switchable to phono or regular, and left and right 1/8 external speaker outputs. So many features in one boombox, one could get overwhelmed and just put it on a shelf and admire the beauty of vintage bliss!
So since this is my first Japan only boombox, is it normal for the FM stations to not want to lock into “in stereo” position? The stereo LED just barely flickers. I’ve adjusted the pot inside to calibrate the “stereo” sound but it just won’t lock on? Any info would be great. Cheers
A little DeOxit or FaderLube on the Stereo switch might be the easy answer (I'm not sure which one is recommended for that type of switch, probably DeOxit). I've never repaired stereo issues but it might be the switch, the solder joints on the back side might also have broken or cracked. Check to see if the tape or line in is in stereo, if all the output are out it might be a bigger issue.
