While I have come to appreciate the certain amount of snobbery that exists when it comes to boomboxes on this site and in the minds of most people that have affectionate memories of the boxes of the 80's; the fact is that for the most part, they sound pretty crap and are of little use for the reproduction of music at reasonable volumes in a large room.

Don't get me wrong; I am a fan of the classic boombox look with a tape deck in the middle and speakers either side; handle on top and batteries in the rear but even the most exotic and expensive of the classic designs just don't cut it when asked to do what we all have rather rose tinted views of what they did back in the day.

The fist time I visited Chris (Deliverance) I saw, among many classic and very appealing machines a Kaboom (90 i think) and asked what it was?

Chris replied "You can effing have it if you want; piece of crap. Loud but crap."

That kind of put me off but certain other members of the forum; Radio Raheem in particular seemed pretty convinced that they were good so I made a mental note to look out for a bargain and find out for myself.

My girlfriend has been a fitness instructor in the past and decided early this year that she was going to take some refresher courses and have a go at it again. An excellent excuse to buy a Kaboom, I thought and one duly turned up in Bristol. We took a day out to pick it up and during the demonstration that it worked were both blown away by the power of the thing.

This one was an RV-NB10B and while it was noticeably shy on treble, the bass was tremendous and it was clearly more capable of filling a room with a loud sound than anything that i has previously seen that was not a full blown PA system. Ideal.

As the months went on, I asked around and it seemed that the DP200 model was even more powerful with the added benefit of a treble control that worked. I found one for a reasonable price and bought it. Oh my god!

The strangest thing happened in about June this year. I saw another type of 'personal PA' on sale and was intrigued. This one had no tape and no battery compartment so does not really fit into the typical boombox description but it was portable (has a handle), is quite rugged and has lots of options and sockets to connect anything that you might want to it. It looked powerful too.

A deal was done and I became the proud owner of a Panasonic SY-PA100. It sounded good; very powerful and while not quite blowing the Kaboom's out of the water was at least a level higher because of the effortless way it goes very loud while staying incredibly composed. 

By now, I was hoping that my Girlfriend was really going through with her plan; so I gave her a gentle shove in the right direction by printing some leaflets and booking a local venue for her to get started. Subtle.

She has been running her aerobics class for about 5 weeks now and it is going very well. Last night I took the normal PA100 as a main machine with the NB10 as a back-up plus the DP200 so that I could give them all a thorough appraisal in the large open space and my earlier thoughts were confirmed. Whatever anybody that is prejudiced has to say about these tube type machines; they sound amazing. The NB10 is excellent but lacking in detail. Very loud and amazing bass. The DP200 makes up for the lack of treble and adds some smoothness to the bass but is less substantially made and looks kind of silly. It's Pink, for goodness sake!

The Panasonic is in a league of it's own though. In a 1000 square foot room the volume need go no higher than 2 out of 10. At 4 it is too loud to hear anything but a fire alarm over it and all the time the bass is perfectly controlled and tight with a clear treble and mid. It's a really lovely, powerful sound and is perfect for the job. At the end of the day; fitness for purpose wins here but don't get me wrong... If it had been practical to line up a few traditional machines and tune them into a cd player and an FM transmitter I would have done it but as good as it would have looked; all of them would have been farting and squeaking and probably packing-up under the strain.

Thanks for this write up NickFish, I was looking for something a little more powerful and portable music center than my Sharp HK-9000 for my mother's fitness class. I wonder how the new SY-PA100 compares to the old RiddimVox.

Truth of the matter is Kaboom's are good, vey good infect. If they are your cup of tea or not, nobody can deny that they are top performers. They benefit from 30 odd years of technological developments after all. I like the look of that Panasonic; looks pretty amazing!  A touch of old school looks about it maybe!

The Panny does look like a couple of blokes in garage made it!  Maybe thats what I like about it, that home made look!

The Panny is very solid. I think I could drive over it tbh.

The only problem that i had with it was the cd mechanism was sticking a bit and not accessing discs properly but a little cleaning and some ceramic grease on the laser sliders was all it took. Lack of use I guess.

I have seen 3 on Ebay in the last year and all went for around £125 which is pretty good value for such an industrial piece of kit.

Like the look of the riddimbox.

Seb; THIS is home-made.....

And it is VERY loud.

With a lick of silver paint and a handle on the top that would look cool. Nice big speakers!!  

Always fancied one of these

marvel!

the dp200 is just as strong on batteries as with ac power -

does that big panny takle batteries ?

No batteries in the PA100. Mains only.

That Riddimvox seems to have exactly the same CD player lid and the controls and display look very similar. Was it made by Panasonic or did Panasonic acquire the Riddimvox maker at some point?

Fascinating.

The Panasonic RX-PA7 RiddimVox has a 12v dc input terminal.

The PA100 does not have a 12v DC socket. It's mains all the way.

I really want the riddimvox now.

I'm always tempted to buy a more modern box [I really like the look of the panasinic here] but there is always a vintage one that I would rather have instead. Nick's right it is down to looks and perhaps a bit of snobbery but for my purposes my RX7200 or big Lasonic sound good enough for any room in my house and loud enough to piss off my neighbours if I cranked them up high enough

I've no doubt some newer boxes are louder and sound better than most classic boxes and I wonder if it's all down to speaker technology in the last 20 to 30 years. My question is, do you think with a speaker upgrade the classic older boxes could give the kaboom and others arun for its money?

I don't think so smeats. The amplifiers are just too weedy to drive any decent sized magnets and the cases would just buzz and vibrate even if the speakers did not distort. There are small improvements to be made but on the whole I think that most classic boxes should be regarded as objects of art. I love them all but I will enjoy them more if I respect the limitations. 

It's a terribly sad fact that since the 80's with the exception of true Kabooms and a handful of eggs there really has not been much to shout about and the current state of play is pretty appalling. 

Thats very true Nick. If only there was a modern desighn that was as good looking as an 80's boombox!

yeah, there's just no market for powerfull portable stereos now, it's all just compact mp3 players and docking stations. ryuX's crown is a good example of what can be achieved with modding...hell of a lot of effort though

Crown SZ-5100 Project

I got a B99, NB10, two DP100s and a DP200. But in volume they are all beaten fairly easely by the HK-9000s, even when they are on batteries. The latter is way louder and a real 80's box. The kabooms have a much better bass at low volume, but aren't really suited for outdoors imho.

Thanks for this post Nikfish i have oftern wondered about this panny,,,i may get one but not sure as when they dont use batts you may aswell use a stack system but interesting post none the less.......and as always yup the dp200 pisses over most of them....but i have to say using the m90 before she blew i was blown away almost to the point of tears

if you want my m90 and boxed dp200 for your m90...come get it sir

I bet it's well worth the effort though!

totally I would love to hear it in action

3 modern boxes to consider..

Ihome IP4.. funky looking but excellent all aroung sound..

Sharp GX-M10 (for the Kaboom lovers out there) that being me

and an ugly as f*ck G-Boom Bluetooth boombox.. not much in the looks department.. but cranks for such a small (lunch box size) boomer.. plus rechargeable 6 hour battery and 2 way speakers..

just my input.. I have owned 20 Kabooms of all models.. the Sharp will surprise you..

Tee Hee!!

It's great to know there is still some good gear being made, cheers for the info.

It's the clarity im interested in retro....all other kabooms are rubbish for this reason

TOTALLY

what matters with boxes for me is the associations we make with them. 80s boxes send me back to rap, hip hop, breakdance, graffiti. kabooms suggest aerobics, home gym, desperate housewives, television. when i see the former i think of afrika bambaata public enemy and the like; the latter remind me of jane fonda. nothing wrong with the latter, she's a great actress and aerobics is cool. but it's something else.

this said, hat off to NickFish for this great post (i'm serious!) and the courage it took to go to the dark side (less so...)

The kabooms are just great for wild parties. Two weeks ago two girlfriends and me had a blast with them. All three of us had a dp with microphone and were streaming music via fm to them. After lots of wine and beer it had become a very creative sesion with singing, drumming, scratching etc lol. The day after my neigbours hated me and it was all on tape haha  

Later I found a part of the microphone plug had broken off en was deep inside the box. The boxes were completely coverded with wine and beer too! Would be very sad if this had happend with a cool eighties box. So altough they aren't really collectible for some, they have still some good use  It's also an awesome experencie to be in a room of 5x5 meter with three DPs blasting at full power and bass! Yeah, I'm single... If you don't understand this lol  

Panasonic RX-PA7 vs. SY-P100

Yes that's the one

Also don't forget a car has a smaller volume of air and is more aitight than say a room. Which is why it's loud.  Once I open the boot, things get a lot quieter.

Another comparison is betwen my Panasonic egg and my superwoofer.  The superwoofer is louder, but the Panasonic has ported speakers.  I would say he Panasonic has much tighter bass.

Oh and before I forget....Bose....nuff said.

this is how I imagine it

Thats fantastic smeats!

even I'd drag my flabby wheezing arse along to an aerobics class if this was the reality

I think I had better leave you with those thoughts. No intention of shattering your dreams!

Nice vid smeats; I had forgotten that one.

As would I smeats!