If I'm not very much mistaken Junichi Matsusaki is the guy behind Design Underground. Some interesting finds here. It was my frustration with the availability of these rare Asia-only units that got me collecting in the first place.
I try to think why they kept the really cool units close to home, the best theory I can come up with is the millions of similar units that went around the world funded the really cool small run units that stayed in the local market. Maybe they thought the exclusive nature would also help sell the more common units. If I looked at a catalog and everything was black, silver or gray, it would look a little lifeless, but throw in some color, maybe an exclusive feature or two and it really elevates the entire series.
I can think of several reasons: Mains Voltage Type approval - way before CE marking many Boomboxes sold in the UK had BEAB approval. in the USA you would need FCC approval. However, I think the biggest reason is probably the way electricals are sold outside of Japan. Most are probably sold by chains of stores of one type or another. Best Buy, Argos, Dixons, Carreforre. None of them stock a huge range and most of them stock the same items (although I know that Curry's have sold Canon cameras with exclusive model numbers). So the export range is probably only a fraction of the full Japanese range as that is enough to meet retailers needs. Maybe they try models on the Japanese market and if sales are good get them type approved and start selling them abroad. Using a car analogy a lady at work used to drive a Toyota Sera. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Sera another had a Nissan Figaro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Figaro Both were cars only sold in Japan, although many Japanese only cars ended up in the UK, especially due to the punitive fees on keeping older vehicles on the road in Japan and low import duties to the UK. The green one with the doors open on Wikipedia has UK registration plates. I was amazed to hear in Dog DeMuros video that the Nissan Skyline wasn't sold in the USA. I had always assumed that it was a car designed for the American market in the same way as the 240Z.
We never had the Skyline but the models imported over here now are going for silly money. Japanese Cars had a very hard time getting sold here, the rust issue was huge but the big three marketing departments and most auto related magazines thrashed on them all the time. They got their foothold with inexpensive cars with great gas mileage but in the Midwest rust was still a huge issue going into the early 90's. I don't think the voltage was a huge issue, they have 50/60 Hz and 100v but since they have fairly large voltage spikes most equipment can handle a wide range, at least that's what I've been told. The mass-marketing department stores make sense, some of the camera stores might have had the cool models but they were far and few between and didn't really like us youngsters milling around.
I'm losing track of all of the links hopefully these are new. BOSE AW-1 Restore Technician, there's some cool stuff on here, the guy threw out a ton of audio equipment due to space. https://translate.googleusercontent...700259&usg=ALkJrhjmEZpAIKy4jQifCyLuGbl8ZvgNjw
audiosharing.com seems to be cut and paste reviews of audio equipment from the 70's to now. Most of the articles are taken from Japanese Magazines including Stereo Sound. I couldn't find any portable audio related but there's a ton of cool stuff on here. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://audiosharing.com/review/?m=197110
Unboxing a NOS JVC PC-5W, it's cool to re-live getting that boxed boombox. https://showenday.pixnet.net/blog/post/38668999-jvc-pc-5w手提組合式音響(30年以上的老物件)---
I was spending a little time polishing up some roached out Technic's Speakers and was looking for some information on them and I found this old zombie website, it hasn't been on the web since 2007, I went through the wayback machine and google translate. There's a lot of brief stereo information, try different dates on the wayback machine if the photos don't pop up. https://translate.google.com/transl...205204629/http://www11.plala.or.jp/se_ke5583/
I may have posted this one already, tons of boombox photos. http://www5f.biglobe.ne.jp/~silencium/datahtml/boombox/index.html
There's a lot of audio equipment and other neat Japanese Products on this site but I can only get it to translate portions and not the entire site. http://www.flatearth.jp/
It's Russian and there's a ton of those boxes on here. https://back-in-ussr.com/2016/11/kassetniki-80-h.html
It's not Japanese but Taras Wolf looks at a bunch of cool 80's electronics, the whole site also has a ton of other neat design products including cars and houses with great photography. https://review.wolfarchitects.design/
Bubble Boomboxes! We call them eggs, the Japanese call them bubble boomboxes, the rounded boomers from the 90's. There's a ton of boxes on this site and it looks like he does a lot of repairs on them. I've posted the English Translation, feel free to adjust to your favorite language. https://translate.googleusercontent...x.html&usg=ALkJrhj1iMC7uegr3g6A7yuz_m543qEJew
