Ain't she purrty?

It's a Sony CFD-770. From 1990 so a bit on the near side of old-skool but pretty vintage. This is in extremely good shape too. Only problem is the matte finish on all the front has degraded and turned gummy somewhat like the greasy film you get on things in restaurant kitchens and the like, and can be scraped off. (Some is missing on the tape door.)

I remember listening to a few of these higher-end early-90's Sonys back then and being somewhat disenchanted by their sound. This has reminded me why, but it's not a big thing: it's just that I just like a lot of "low-mid" in tone-curve and these are a bit lacking there and have a bit more "high-mid" than I like, regardless how you fiddle with the EQ. But it's extremely clean sounding.

I actually saw this Saturday. I know better than to pass things like this up, so when sensibility caught up with me I went back first thing Monday and grabbed it after verifying that the CD player worked. (Would have passed it up if it didn't because it would have just added to nonworking/partially-working clutter I'm trying to avoid.) It's interesting, when I was there on Saturday somebody else was testing out some modern bulgy lower-end 3-piece that he eventually bought. On one hand, too bad he didn't know the fine piece he could have gotten instead, and on the other hand, not a bad choice for obvious reasons. (I picked up that tape deck then, having needed one but repeatedly putting it off.)

There's something I'm curious about, after doing a search: Is it this user's former box, by any chance? It's the sticker on the right-side tape door being at an angle combined with my also being on the central coast in CA that makes me wonder. But both decks work very well on mine.

Tell me you bought this thing ?? i would have bought it in an instant..
i got one from a flea about a year and half ago,i loved it,i had been wanting one for years..quality box...and quite rare..

(signing off for the day...I'll try to gt back here tomorrow to answer anything)

Absolutely, I bought it. The pics are at my place, although I can see how it could be confused otherwise. That's all my stuff. I didn't buy it immediately Saturday like I should have (waffled because it doesn't have a line-in, but so what, I have others that do), but it was there when I went for it at store-opening Monday. (I was busy Sunday and I'm about 15 miles away.) Set me back terribly an enormous $19.99.

Ah yes,I bought one of these brand new in 1991.
I still have the receipt and owners manual,but unfortunately the CFD770 is long gone.
You got a good deal as I paid over $500.00 for mine.
Sony also made a CFD775. It was basically a CFD770 with 16 times oversampling on the cd player.

That's a nice Sony. I have one myself. And mine has the same sticky problem that you described. You can scrape it off with your findernail.

This thing is a monster, and heavy. And the sound is pretty nice.

Did this happen to come with the remote? Also, does yours keep the radio preset stations?

those kind of boxes don't do anything for me. If you like it thats all that matters.

quote:

Originally posted by skippy1969:
Ah yes,I bought one of these brand new in 1991.
I still have the receipt and owners manual,but unfortunately the CFD770 is long gone.

When I did a forum search I read that yours fell of a shelf. That's gotta suck bad.
If these were $~500 then I paid 4% of that--not counting 19 years of inflation....

quote:

Originally posted by milosancho:
That's a nice Sony. I have one myself. And mine has the same sticky problem that you described. You can scrape it off with your findernail.

This thing is a monster, and heavy. And the sound is pretty nice.

Did this happen to come with the remote? Also, does yours keep the radio preset stations?

Monster, yes; heavy, geez yes; sounds nice, yes.

It didn't have a remote, however way back in school (1992) a friend gave me a remote for a Sony stereo of some sort, that he had laying around. It's certain to work with this; it's stored away but I'll get it next chance I have.

I haven't messed with presets yet. I assume it'll need batteries in order to keep presets and the time, or probably it takes some AA's in addition to the usual 8 D's.

An interesting thing on this (and I know some other boxes have this too) is there's a line-out just for the CD. It makes sense in that CD players were still a fairly premium thing at the time, and that it might get used with a stereo. But it's also a tad odd because one would think a top-of-the-line box like this would most likely be used as an in-home stereo to begin with. I'd half-expect line-level and maybe phono ins too. I'm thinking of looking inside and building a line-in mod if I can do it unobtrusively (inside the battery compartment maybe), because I want to use it with my DVD player and computer and stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by jerryjg:
those kind of boxes don't do anything for me. If you like it thats all that matters.

To be honest it's not really my dream box either. One of those high-end Panasonics a la DT-680 would be closer. But I'm glad I found it and it's been put to use.

well it doesnt look too bad despite being a later one.however i wouldnt have paid as much as you did for it, but due to monetary limitations i set myself £10 a time for a box- and see what i can get.ive had all sorts for well under a tenner so i always stick to that amount. ive got a panasonic rx ct-680 thats a late one but i paid nothing for that.

My parents have a model similar to that