The Ultimate Marantz, Superscope, UNIX Boombox Thread

It's time to kick this thread back into action, make sure you read through the whole thing, I'll be adding to existing posts so there's some order. Feel free to contribute anything related to Marantz, Superscope, Universal, UNIX, Standard, etc.

This is the dealer cutsheet for that mega-monster, the Superscope by Marantz CRS-4000. If I had to describe a boombox to future generations, this would be the model that would be on the short list. The build quality is stellar, the tuner pulls in everything, there's connections for external speakers, antenna, phonograph and much more. These are still somewhat rare and can be found for reasonable money when they do come up for sale. There are different versions which have more radio bands and even the whole body seems to have different versions with the top portion being removable. I don't have enough to highlight the different models. Hope you enjoy these S2G Exclusives.

For the younger guys, this box came out around 77-78, Star Wars was huge and back then, before video recording, there wasn't many ways to see a movie after it left theatres. Star Wars played for around TWO years at our local theatre and marketing for the movie really played on "The Force", nowadays that would have been trademarked in a heartbeat but back then they didn't have the foresight.

 

Let's throw in another S2G Exclusive, just in time for the holidays, CRS-4000 The Ultimate Portable Music System! It's weird how Marantz used Ultimate in their description as well, I bought these brochures well after I had started this thread and had never seen them before. I hope you guys enjoy these early brochures.






Found on the internet, most likely part of the Japanese CRS-4000 brochure

 

Signs found on the internet.

 

For the hardcore boombox collector there's been one unicorn, seemingly unobtanium, model. While it's chassis is very similar to the Superscope CRS-4000 and for the most part it isn't a particularly stand-out box, the Superscope by Marantz CRS-5000 is the cream of the 2nd generation Marantz Boomboxes before the 80's hit.

Why is this box lusted after? As far as I know it's the only boombox to have three heads! Looking back, most of the three head portable units were considered "field recorders" and did not have AM/FM radio with speakers for listening and not monitoring. Marantz took it a step further and upgraded the CRS-4000 with a few additional features for recording including right and left recording controls (on the left top by the red power light) and brown shaded plastic panels mounted on the control surfaces using allen head screws, similar to what Onkyo was doing with it's recievers.

My CRS-5000 is shown with the matching Superscope by Marantz EC-33S Microphones. These can clip together or separated for recording and the full kit comes with all the accessories you need for recording out in the field. My camera's color balance is off, the unit is very stately with gray over black, the gray looks silver in my photo. This unit has the antenna that will collapse into the body so you don't have to worry about breaking it off. Overall it feels just a hair heavier than the CRS-4000 and I think it was Japanese Domestic Market only so the FM only goes up to 80 MHz.

A very nice box that is typical Marantz, you can listen for hours at a decent volume, even crank it a little and the music is very relaxing. In my experience most Superscope/Marantz's don't have the thumping base but your ears won't get fatigued listening to them if it's in a medium size room. The CRS-4000 is 2 watts a channel and this is most likely the same but they use it wisely and it's so clear.

Hopefully you guys like it, if it wasn't for the guys that used to post years ago, I would have never known about this one and maybe we can save more of these rare beasts from long ago.

 

The EC-33S is the recommended microphone for Superscope Boomboxes. I'm not going to kid you they are pretty light duty plastic construction but they're pretty cool looking and they can split up if needed for stereo separation. I don't know a lot about microphones and what it does when you use the mics clipped together and your recording in stereo.

The full box is nicely packaged with an inner plastic case that nests the microphone, there's additional plugs for different female jacks and windscreens for any configuration. These still can be found for a reasonable price and are a great addition if you have an older Superscope Box.

 

While this is a little off topic I thought I'd add it since it's pretty cool and the more I research Marantz the more I like these accessories. This is a Dolby Test Tape for reel to reel, I'm assuming it is similar to the cassette versions but I haven't gotten my test equipment hooked up yet to try it out. Marantz never made a production reel to reel player but there seems to be at least two unicorn prototypes out there.

Marantz Packaging Branding is all over the place but these really stand out with nice bold text on what the product is for and the now popular blue on white color scheme. There is no part number on here anywhere.

 

Thanks Bleusy! Marantz Stereos made a huge impression when I was a youngster, along with Nakamichi. I can tell by your websites you like to get into the dirt as well and it's cool exposing these forgotten gems of audio history. Too bad Nakamichi never came out with a boombox, their field recorder is legendary and they were so close, I have to believe there's some prototypes out there somewhere.

The CRS-4000 does show up once in a while but it tends to be clusters where two or three show up and then you don't see them for a long time. I never knew Marantz had boomboxes until about 12 years ago when a few members on the forum talked about them. I checked ebay everyday for over seven years and almost nothing came up but if it did it went for silly money. Now there's a few posted at one time, still listed for silly money but every once in a while you can find a nice one for more reasonable money.

I think there's three version of these, Japanese with 80 MHz max on the FM dial and 100 volts. European Versions with multi-radio bands and a voltage selector and USA with 120 volts and usually just AM/FM. I rarely look at ebay Europe but I do check Yahoo.jp auctions once in a while, they have a ton of cool stuff but shipping will be high and these show up more regularly. They seem to really abuse their boomboxes in Japan some are cheap and pretty roached out.

I'm hoping that people will see this thread and more units will pop up, they already go for a premium so I think they've hit their high and maybe they'll come back down to more reasonable pricing. If you check out ARKAYs old threads, he was finding them all the time in Hong Kong. He was a huge poster here before he moved over to Audio Karma, if you have any connections there it might be a great place to find them at a decent price.

 

I finally found a Superscope CRS-4500 but it's really roached out, some one please tell me not to get it. The pink clips are killing me but this thing is rare and I want one bad. It looks like there's a lot of environment damage and it looks like they pulled it out of a lake. I'm sure this was a nice box when new and I love the hexagonal screw at the top which carries over to the receiver line.
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/x583227899

 

I didn't realize that the Superscope CRS-2000 was such a good looking box but one came up for sale and the seller took great photos. The venting wraps around the body, very similar to USA hot-roders that did this to their car hoods during the 70's. This is for the true boombox lovers, one of the very first boxes, from the early 1970's, Marantz didn't mess around, VU meter, cassette mode indicator, tape odometer, line input/output and external FM antenna connections. This one only goes up to 90 MHZ, kind of odd for a Superscope Box and some of the switches may look goofy but this was cutting edge back then.
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/n305657392

 

That one is in much better condition but it's still odd looking overall. Knowing Superscope, it most likely is a heavy, beefy unit, I just wish I could see one up close.

 

This Superscope CRS-152 just popped up for sale, there's a few others on ebay but this is the only white one I've ever seen. Without owning one, I thought someone peeled off the usual woodgrain or painted over it but this looks legit. There's printing on the white and the white is under the trim and panel pieces. The rear sticker is intact but the unit is kind of crusty. While this looks like a mono box, it is a stereo unit, the little handle is kind of funky and it has an internal antenna compartment like most of the later models.

When I first saw it, I thought the white made a great looking box, not recognizing which model it was. Very Space 2001 modern but unfortunately it's missing it's speakers. I'll keep my eye on it, maybe the price will drop.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERSCOPE...5:g:sMgAAOSwJ4hcSzvx:rk:4:pf:1&frcectupt=true

 

Time to get this thread rolling again, I've got some cut sheets/Service Data some of the microphones. When the cassette format as we knew it came out everyone loved to record, most recorders came with a cheap plastic microphone. I know Marantz has some pretty nice microphones but I have no idea how these older units rate, but since they were sold to be used with the players on this thread I thought it would be interesting to include them. marantz/Superscope always does a great job with their data sheets, lot's of nice drawings and even packaging instructions. This looks like it's from 1977.

The Superscope by Marantz EC-3 Microphone.

 

The Superscope by marantz EC-5 Microphone. It's interesting to see the very small differences.

 

The first Superscope Microphone in the EC Series, the EC-1. Notice this is a Superscope Model only and dated 1975.

 

It seems like the CRS-4000 was the swan song for the 70's and the early 80's saw the golden age. Ownership may have changed at this point or distribution territories but while the home components were turning to mass-marketed crap (there are some exceptions), the boomboxes and field recorders were still very nice units. Superscope still seems to have a say and distribution for the PMD Field Recorders, who knows about the boomboxes, autoreverser recently bought a CRS-3504 with only Superscope Branding. The last four would indicate four bands on the radio, something the US didn't have with ours being a 3500 and only AM/FM. My US version PMS-3500 is branded Marantz, so not only is the company different but they went to the infamous PMS label, I remember ARKAY's old threads discussing the name before I owned any of these units, I was in awe of the 2 or 3 guys that had found them.

The golden age was full-on gold-colored branding and anodizing on the front metal faces. For the home component guys some of the pieces are gold and some are not, a Marantz 1972 Catalog talks about the gold anodized front metal plates but not all of the units, even in the same series, are gold. It's just a hint of gold, similar to tobacco staining from a smoking household.

Personally I like the gold, this is when silver and black were wrestling with black faced equipment winning. With lower quality production standards and more plastic used in the construction, the black-colored audio equipment got a bad reputation, but a lot of the audio companies were fighting for survival at this point and just needed to make money. Even after ownership change, or whatever happened, the Marantz/Superscope Units went to metal front panels. Here's some of the early gold models.

 

I just found this on the forum reader, a couple more threads on the old forum, the first one discussing the merits of the Superscope CD-320, retr0basshead's photo shows only Superscope on the badging, maybe Europe Version?
http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/index.php?content_oid=402823826133194965&board_oid=193392314111653340



And leave it to TPR to have a one of a kind ad. That guy knew everything about boxes from the beginning of the forum, maybe the most informed member ever. Notice the antenna goes into the body, such a great feature.
http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/index.php?board_oid=193392314111653340&content_oid=193392314112176045

 

One of my favorites, the marantz PMS 3040, for Marantz this was their first mini 1-piece boombox, just a hair larger than most mini's at the time it's a nicely constructed example of Marantz Workmanship. Mine is missing the data plate so I don't know who constructed it and what market it's for although it's probably USA. The surfaces have that nice Marantz Gold Metal Plating and the unit is substantially heavy. They finally went to two-way power and got rid of the power cord but still kept a lot of inputs and outputs including two microphone inputs, two speaker outputs and two line-ins, pretty impressive for this little guy. Anytime I can get lot's of LED's I'm happy and there's plenty on the front face, I'm not sure if the tuning dial lights up, it looks like it could but if it is it's not working on mine. This is a loud box and would be great for a backyard picnic, it picks up stations with ease, but I've always had good luck with Marantz Boombox Tuners picking up more stations than the other boxes.





Here's a data plate from a unit that was recently on Ebay, hopefully it went to a great new home. These are still made in Taiwan like the older Superscope's and still Designed in U.S.A. They were marketed after the "Philips" Buyout, Superscope might have still been making them for USA only distribution.

 

I found this ad, don't ask me what the strings are, I think just dressing. The ad is dated June 18th, 1981 from Pacific Stereo, a very large West Coast Stereo Retailer. The Marantz PMS-3020 is a larger box but must not be as powerful as the little PMS-3040, I'll be pulling that one down next for comparison. These were not cheap boxes in 1981, it's one of there reasons why there isn't more of them, there's no way our parents would have splurged on one of these.