sanyo#-m9978 IBBN 7-06724 --

aka:

sanyo#-m4550 IBBN 7-10407

siemens-club745 IBBN 7-01401

sears-21881 IBBN 7-10615

Hee, Hee, Hee.......... They could not even make up their own design!!!

Oh well it is good, in a way, that they used a nice Bbox as a model. I wonder if they bought the "Rights" from Sanyo to semi-copy Sanyo's M 9978???

That's DEFINATELY a copy of the Sanyo!

Well spotted, *TPR*!

The similarity is overwhelming but they need bigger speakers in Teac. Come on Teac don't get cheap on the speakers, that's part of the visual effect of these big boxes.

quote:

Originally posted by Retro Addict:

quote:

Originally posted by MasterBlaster84:
The similarity is overwhelming but they need bigger speakers in Teac. Come on Teac don't get cheap on the speakers, that's part of the visual effect of these big boxes.

The Sanyo box isn't big actually, I have the M4550 version (much the same) and it's not very big at all, it just looks big. Plus, the original Sanyo's had small crappy speakers in too, which you can't see in the pic.

True it's not a huge box but the way Sanyo blacked out the speaker openings give it the big speaker appearance. The silver openings on the Teac let you know in a flash it's running small speakers. Is it really that hard for them to bump the speakers to 6" or bigger? They already have to grilles for it on the front of the box.

Edited... you can see they aren't blacked out, it was just the first picture.

That Teac is butt-fugly.....

They could do so much better......

Whoever designed it, should be fired.

quote:

That Teac is butt-fugly.....

They could do so much better......

Whoever designed it, should be fired.

Com-on PF!!!!! Give them a chance!

We have LASONIC and maybe TEAC........ They are not sure if all this is going to sell enough to bring them the money they want... you know that it is all money in the end.

So, true it is not the tip-top best Bbox that has come out in 2008.... but, could you please give me a list of the other Boombxes that have been put out in 2008 to compare to TEAC's....?????

Generally I'm an optimist at heart, and not wanting to rain on anyone's parade here...but I have to agree with PanFan...they could have done much better, Teac is no stranger to the game. If they were seriously attempting to bring back some of the love from the past, they've really missed the mark imo. C'mon folks, time for a reality check...this is 2008, and the bbx we all remember and love is long gone. Yes, there are some superb wedge/egg style bbxs produced by Panasonic these days that do truly perform, but for most people, they don't fit the bill for them as a bbx. Anyway, the point is, do we really expect that this newfangled Teac (or even the new Lasonic that's been in the works for what seems like forever) to be built to the same standards of bbx's of the past? Think about that for a moment...in order to offset design/materials/production costs, and even hope to see any kind of (marginal) profit-companies these days rarely venture into the break-even or zero profit zone...(and, that is, assuming these prototypes ever get to production, no doubt limited at that)...they are going to have to be manufactured as cheaply as possible...dirt cheap to be exact. Heaven forbid they should end up being churned out of a Coby factory in order for this to become reality. Don't think they wouldn't do it, after all, if a world reknown company like Grundig can do it...(sell their name, and move manufacturing to China) others have, are, and will continue to follow suit.

Don't get me wrong, if Teac (and Lasonic) can pull this off, and market a reasonable product at a reasonable cost, then hats off to 'em, and I wish 'em all the best-but I wouldn't hold my breath...besides, after all's said and done, the Teac is being designed and built around an iPod...need I say more?

NO, you said it all very well JC.
Would it'a killed 'em to put in a damn CASSETTE DECK?

quote:

Originally posted by bredgeo:

quote:

That Teac is butt-fugly.....

They could do so much better......

Whoever designed it, should be fired.

Com-on PF!!!!! Give them a chance!

We have LASONIC and maybe TEAC........ They are not sure if all this is going to sell enough to bring them the money they want... you know that it is all money in the end.

So, true it is not the tip-top best Bbox that has come out in 2008.... but, could you please give me a list of the other Boombxes that have been put out in 2008 to compare to TEAC's....?????

Well, without looking the part, it really doesn't stand a chance.

I'm surprised that Sony or Panasonic hasn't put out an anniversary edition of one of their all time best sellers.

It looks smallish, has deceptively small main speakers..... it's just butt ugly. Does it look like something that was sold 25 years ago? Sure.

I hate to tell you, but the '83 Chevy Chevette ain't makin' a comeback either.

Give us something with good lines. RX-5150'ish, or M9990'ish. Simple, elegant lines. Something that doesn't look like it used to be a toaster. Is that too much to ask?

quote:

Originally posted by Joe Cool:
Heaven forbid they should end up being churned out of a Coby factory in order for this to become reality. Don't think they wouldn't do it, after all, if a world reknown company like Grundig can do it...(sell their name, and move manufacturing to China) others have, are, and will continue to follow suit.

JC say it isn't possible, built in a Coby factory? I'm sick to my stomach at the thought!

You are right though, odds are it will be cheap and as such may die a quick death as a result. I certainly hope they can pull of a good product but we'll have to wait and see.

I wonder who their target market is?

Are they aiming to sell to older guys who lived through the 80's bbx heyday and want to relive the nostalgia, with the added song selection of modern iPods as a source? Or are they aiming at younger people who only know the iPod era firsthand but want to play their music on something that is portable, sounds bigger and has some "retro-cool" factor?

Unfortunately, cassette tape mechanisms are far more fiddly and complex to make than just an iPod connector leading to the amp. They add to cost. Putting a cassette mechanism in (as well as the iPod dock) would have meant making a larger (double-well) box, too, adding even more to the cost.

Except for a few die-hards like us, cassettes are a dying/dead medium, no longer mainstream. They might even lose sales by adding a cassette mechanism, as there are probably at least as many people who would be put off by that obsolete/old stuff (as they see it), as would be attracted by it (like we would).

No, as unfortunate as it seems, it made a lot of commercial sense for them to do it the way they did. What they have made can be looked at as an iPod docking station that is portable and resembles a boombox. Or you can choose to look at it as an updated evolution of the boombox, no longer reflecting the cassette technology of the original bbox era, but updated to reflect the current era's iPod technology.

It is probably as good as any manufacturer today is likely to put out, and functionally it can be used in any situation where you would have used a boombox years ago, to take your music with you. But a REAL, CLASSIC boombox it isn't. It's a modern thing.

Good? Bad? That's your call, according to your personal tastes.

All that said above, do I wish someone would put out a really solid, very well-designed, high-quality boombox product with all the bells and whistles, great sound, etc...? HECK, YES!

But I don't expect it to happen. They'd probably lose money on the effort.

quote:

Originally posted by Arkay:
All that said above, do I wish someone would put out a really solid, very well-designed, high-quality boombox product with all the bells and whistles, great sound, etc...? HECK, YES!

But I don't expect it to happen. They'd probably lose money on the effort.

Arkay you may be right, it doesn't seem any company is willing to build a great $500+ box. Think about it though, dropping $500 for a box today would be nothing like dropping $500 back in the early 1980's.

The over-under placement for the horizontally oriented tape deck and V.U.s on the Sanyo 9978 look much better.It gives the illusion of the box having a wider space between the big speakers.Unfortunately,the TEACs overly tall and uniformly narrow black ipod inset clashes with the horizontal layout of the box.I don't have a problem with the speaker grills being larger than the speakers.My classic Goldstar TSR-581 is like that.Remember also that the JVC pc55 had smaller speakers than some earlier JVC boxes and they got enormous bass from them (well OK,it was a 3 piece I know).I have to wonder if some sort of porting could be cleverly integrated into a one piece classic styled box without messing up the looks.

This TEAC is really close to where it should be(KEEP THE TWIN ANTENNAE!!!!!).They just need to integrate the vertical Ipod area a little better.Perhaps they can do this before it is produced.I'm still very excited with this release .If it is produced in this form and sells well,perhaps they could make some changes based on buyer feedback.Mostly,we need to be supportive of this effort.As for build quality,I'm not expecting better than my vintage TRC-920 "T" (not the TRC-920).Nothing today is more cheaply built than that but my "T" is still a really loud box with decent bass.The only way we will ever get better build quality than that of the '80s cheap glitzy AKA boxes is for a new high end boombox niche market to emerge.Those would be VERY expensive!

quote:

Originally posted by MasterBlaster84:

quote:

Originally posted by Arkay:
All that said above, do I wish someone would put out a really solid, very well-designed, high-quality boombox product with all the bells and whistles, great sound, etc...? HECK, YES!

But I don't expect it to happen. They'd probably lose money on the effort.

Arkay you may be right, it doesn't seem any company is willing to build a great $500+ box. Think about it though, dropping $500 for a box today would be nothing like dropping $500 back in the early 1980's.

True enough, and there have been advances in technology that SHOULD allow a $500 box today to sound even better than one back then, at lower production cost. (Of course some materials costs are higher today.)

More to the point, people used to pay a lot more for audio gear than they do today. There are far more products competing for their entertainment dollar (computers, playstations, costly big-screen TVs and home theater gear, etc...) than there were years ago, and the culture that made big blasters any kind of status symbol has largely disappeared.

Add to that the increasing sense that "music should be free (or at least cheap) fostered by the ease of downloading songs via the 'net. The younger people who used to save up for weeks to buy favorite 45 rpm records, then cassette tapes, today won't do that for CDs, even. They just download everything as MP3s and stick it in the iPod. Most of these people aren't going to spend $500 on a boombox, I'd bet.

At least the old ones are still around if you hunt for them, and if you are lucky, can sometimes be found affordably. At NEW prices, I wonder how many people here could ever have the boombox collections they do. I know I couldn't.

Great points Arkay.

If they don't build a high quality 21st century version of the boombox I won't be sad. After all it's the old blasters from my youth that really excite me and it's why we are all here.

Wow, I'm really surprised the negative tones towards this product I'm reading here...

Given the modern options of the Lasonic or the Teac as retro styled MP3 players, I'll take the looks of the Teac any day of the week. I do think that the EQ section should be silver so you wouldn't have that big black section running down the middle of the box. If it were, I think there would probably be more of you that think it looks good. Personally, I think TEAC did a pretty good job with the design. It does have a very classic look to it.

And as for the smallish speakers in it... well, I've heard small powered monitors that sounded surprisingly fantastic, so I won't pass any judgement on how the Teac will sound until I actually hear it. Speaker and amp technology have come a long way since 1981 and if it is priced at around $500 without a tapedeck (with lots of moving parts that break) then I'm going to hope they do the right thing and at least use quality amps and high quality, punchy speakers.

Do your thing, TEAC... let us hear this thing and if it sounds good I'll spend my money!!!! But you better build it good! Don't slap your name on something that has the quality of a crappy Yorx or Coby or it will rot on the shelf and go down as a failure.

quote:

Originally posted by MasterBlaster84:
If they don't build a high quality 21st century version of the boombox I won't be sad. After all it's the old blasters from my youth that really excite me and it's why we are all here.

Exactly!

I agree with you JT 100% on all the above statements. Technology has come a long way since the 80s.All we can hope is they put some quality into it.

quote:

Originally posted by Jovie:
I have to wonder if some sort of porting could be cleverly integrated into a one piece classic styled box without messing up the looks.

That sort of thing's been done before, Jovie. I remember someone posted photos of the inside a Sharp VZ-2000 or VZ-2500 ages ago, and both of the two full-range drivers had it's own enclosure. Whether they were 'ported' or not, I don't know. But the speakers were definately contained within their own 'boxes', the rear circles of which 'poked through' the rear of the case of the radio. I can only assume that particular step was taken to improve a 'hollow' sound which the enormous VZ's may have produced in the development stages, when the speakers may have been originally fitted the 'normal' way for a one-piece boombox.

the vz 2000 speakers are not ported ,but they are ventilated ,theres small holes in the rear of the cabinets and insulation inside.

Thanks for the info, JVC Floyd.

Today consumers don't expect that their eggs are built like tanks, with 7+7W. People get used that things last two years and then ... trash ... People like low cost electronics, and know low cost means short life, but it's ok since it's low cost. And if it links in another way to an Ipod, then is marketing enabled ...
So Ipod design the core of clocks radios, personal music systems etc ... people invested once in the music box. The other things most be friendly with that lovely gadget ...

You are so right Success, we live in a throw away society where people get bored with their toys quickly.