I was busy last night, having finally got around to cleaning up the Hitachi CX200 that rimmer36 sent me. He got it from a dump (or "waste recycling centre" yeh, whatever) & then it looked like this:
 
To be fair he got busy with the washing up liquid before it came my way it looked like this:

& was fully working.
Of course the inside hadn't got any cleaner & the centre woofer made some horrible cracking noises.

So, when I at last get round to administering TLC & replacing the broken antenna, it comes apart in the usual 3D way (screws out the back, front panel with speakers comes off. Screws out the top rear & the top panel comes off - keep the doors open & remove knobs first). I didn't take a pic but it was as dirty inside as it was on the outside.
Absolutely minging.
A thick, thick layer of sticky grime, spider webs, the lot. The tape deck transport mechanism was a disgrace. No idea how it was still working. I took out every board & sub assembly and cleaned it all, including every piece of casework & every switch.

Here's a pic of it going back together.

Look at those weedy speakers. Shame, we're talking 3D30 territory here. Tweeters? er nope. Left & right are 4" (with small magnets, as you can see) & the centre woofer is a paltry 4½", although it is roll edged.
The woofer cracking noise was down to a large amount of crap in the magnet/coil gap. Having cleaned it out I gave it a good thrashing when removed to check all the cracking noises had gone. Nothing like as much stroke when compared to the tasty 6" woofers in some 3Ds (3D7, 3D8, 3D50, 3D70, etc.).

There's some marking on the case that is permanent, but other than that it scrubbed up OK:
 

Tape deck sounds really rather good, considering it's lowly spec (nothing exciting except full auto stop).
The radio grabs an FM station like it's new. What stops this being a pretty mediocre b-box is the CD player. Good clean sounding & pretty good shock protection too. I saw big rubber isolators floating the CD transport & it has a vibration cut device - if you thump it down too hard it pauses & restarts where it left off.
This one is a classic case of no aux-in 'cos the CD player is on board. They really had the blinkers on when CD took hold, eh? (& the bean-counter calculators out as well).
Unusually for a 3D it has no EQ, just bass & treble (many 3Ds only had a 3 band EQ, so only 1 slider difference really). When adjusted it has the usual nice 3D sound at lower volumes. Crank it that centre woofer runs out of puff way to early - just like a 3D30. It's nearest non CD equivalent is the 3D52:

I wonder if that one has a smaller woofer too? I'll have to have a look one day.

One other thing, the CX200 only takes 6 D cells. Almost every other 3D takes 8 (or more).

So there it is.
By the time I'd finished I liked it plenty (perhaps not much of a shock). It's a good little package - not heavy, & good sound at all but blasting volumes.


...one more to go to complete the collection - a 3D75 with a dead auto-reverse deck. I hope it's just belts...

quote:

When I finally get around to sorting the 3D75, I'll be ready for the big 3D museum exhibit.
I wonder if this will be the most complete collection of Hitachi 3Ds in the whole world?