Thank you Derek for keeping and sharing these catalogs with us , so much information in there that it'll take some time to fully appreciate ! To mention just a few highlights for me , WM-F38 / WM-38 color variations and the futuristic CFS-903L sports boombox that I hadn't see before. Probably an alert from another thread ? Here I'm just hitting the like button ... till now ! Thanks again and keep them coming !
Hi Machaneus. Sorry some are a little blurry. Sorry I don't have any other makes to contribute. Thanks for reply..
From the CDP-35 1986-87. https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/sony/cdp-35.shtml I agree with Machaneus in thanking you for posting these. Some of my catalogue scans have been from pictures in ebay listings, especially when the seller wants a silly amount e.g £20. The catalogue with prices was the highlight for me. A colleague bought the ICF-2001D for £299 back then so he could listen to shortwave flat on his back after slipping a disc. Once he had recovered he treated himself to a brand new Astra GTE complete with then state of the art Digital dashboard.
Hi Longman. That was the only brochure I found which had the prices. It's amazing what we had to pay back then. Glad you found it interesting.
I have commented on several forums how the people I bought my first house from in 1986 had a £600 Panasonic HiFi VCR in their £24000 house. The house was a sensible 3x salary while the VCR would have been a months wages (before tax) for me. It was six years before I could justify buying one, by which time they were half the price.
Always the way. I remember back in 1980, had just got married, but I so wanted a Betamax recorder that had just came out. That cost me 1 months wages. Afterwards I just wanted more.
There was a Sony dealer near college (which was where I bought my CFS-45L). I would often go in there to have a look at the latest products. Once I was in there and there was woman having a right go at the salesman. From what I gathered she had bought a Sony Betamax VCR (probably and SL-8000) from them just before the Sony C5 with advanced features like soft touch controls and picture search was launched. https://www.palsite.com/ov_sony.html The downside of being an early adopter. Of course by the late 1980s they were all worthless. Somehow I accumulated three Sony C6s. At an Amateur Radio Rally in the late 1980s someone was once selling "Star Wars Tape £10 - Free Betamax VCR". I wasn't tempted and when I moved house in 1989 gave the C6s away to people hanging on to the Betamax system.
The Betama recorder I bought was the SL-C6UB which came out in 1981. I am just looking at the instruction manual that it came with. The memories. Eventually bought a VHS because as you say they were just about obsolete by the late 80's. Cannot remember the cost but I did enjoy it and it lasted several years.
The C6 seemed to be very popular hence ending up with three. One of them ended up being worth a lot to my new boss in 1989. He was still in the Betamax camp and decided he wanted to buy a new top of the range Sony C9. At the time Sony was doing a promotion of £100 trade in on "any VCR, working or not" so I gave him the worst of the C6s; non working and with the worn out heads out of one of the others fitted. That is what he used as his trade in. p.s. In the mid 1980s I visited BAe Warton. They had a stack of SL-F30s (or similar) on their Tornado simulator to record different thing happening (like the instrument panel readings). I suppose they agreed that Betamax had the highest quality.
If I remember correctly I had to buy the separate remote control for it. I don't think it came with one. Cannot remember. I had a look at the C-9 but couldn't justify forking out for another when the C-6 was working perfectly. In 1980 I was living in Redditch and there was a Sony centre in the town centre. Very handy. The next nearest one was in Corporation Street in Birmingham. Lost count how many times I visited them. Now all gone ofcourse.
Ooh that's fascinating to see! I've still got my MHC2700 from that brochure. I've just had it serviced and it sounds as good as day one.
Glad you found it interesting . It's just amazing how many were manufactured including other makes. Great to know your unit is still working after so many years.
Yes its been in constant use since I got it from the Sony centre at Lakeside back in 1993. Cost me 600 quid. I was 21 and that was a heck of a lot of money!
According to the BoE that is £1200 in 2019 money. I was going to say I have never spent such a large amount on an item that didn't have wheels or a deed, when I realised that back in 1984 when I was 22 I spent a similar amount (adjusted for inflation) on a VCR. I think you have had better value from the HiFi, although I did get about ten years use from the VCR.
