This arrived in the post today , needs a strip clean , which will happen later, but this box sounds great. Not a massive bass shaker , but really clear detailed quality sound.

Nice ben. One of my faves. i`ve got 2.

A lot of people dont like the aestetics of the M80, but I can dig it. Looks like what the 80's thought the future would look like !
Nice find Royal!

Peace Paul Z.

cheers fellas. . . well built unit, just been inside, wow . . nice . . internal frame comes out, lots of stuff. Tape deck now fully working.

I have decided to put it back together for now, and clean later cos theres lots of stuff to come off the back panel . .

Very nice Royal.
The M80 has a love it or hate it reaction, it's definitely a unique box.

i love mine and the tuner on it is pretty good too for a early digital tuner.
i dont mind the lack of bass i mean is sounds aok to me . they are pretty nice well really nice actually.

Both mine have got scratchy volume sliders. I have a habit, of taking boxes to bit`s, cleaning, changing belts, etc. Then, forget to spray some contact cleaner in the pot`s. I have loads of working boxes, with scratchy volume. Worse one, is the m90. It`s got a dead spot between 11 & 12 o`clock.

It is a similar one to my jvc miniboombox!

Both are pretty!
The big and the minibox!

Rich this ones not amazing condition, but all the controls are flawless , which is weird. No scratchiness.

I like the way JVC broke from the norm with this one. Not too much though, unlike Sharp & the brutalist 525/555 units.

Its the Black Tie Sophisticated look for JVC with the M80. A good tunes box for the sophisticed scrabbler.

Nice one Ben,I've always fancied that model.

This is the sophisticated Black Tie look for JVC, just right for listening to tunes by the sophisticated scrabbler.

Nice addition. I have the baby brother M60.

i would also say this gets the best shortwave reception of all the boomboxs i have.

the M80 has a really cool tuner dial if I remember right?

well the tuner dial is just a little knob. but the led indicator is pretty different. its just a few red leds. allthough i love the scan function on it. i would like to have a tradition indicator.
i am kind of thinking with this model they were hoping to maybe appeal to some of the potential grundig buyers a bit more. this is the only boombox i have that can pick up the 40 and 49 meter band fairly good without a extra antenna. its pretty cool beacause you can let it search out the station on its own then fine tune it and write it to memory. here is the short coming of this boomboxes shortwave tuner tho. beacause of its minimal display you cannot see the frequencies exact tuning. still a nice boombox overall. i dont understand the way they did the volume sliders tho. they look cool but i am not sure why they didnt do it as one control.
there is a lot of odd things with this boombox. i mean it dosent seem like it was cheap when new but there is no dolby if i am remembering correctly. i do rather like it tho i think the way it sounds is very nice for listening to shortwave broadcasts. theres something about the thought that was put into the design of this boombox wich seems like they were going for a high browed consumer.
even the funny mesh tweeter trim is pretty different in terms of style. i dont think i would ever sell mine it has a look and sound that grows on you when you stand it besides a more conventional looking boomer.

I will have to plug my M80 in tomorrow and play around with it. I am not sure if it is fully functional or not at this point....

No, it doesn't have Dolby (unless I haven't found that switch on it), but the tape deck's specs are better than the one on the M70. Up to 17K or 18K on metal tape if I remember correctly. I've run mine "line out" into my larger home stereo and the cassette sounds fantastic!

Doesn't the M80 use the same tape transport as the M90?
ie, a home hifi deck bunged into a portable.
M90 deck:


Presuming this is the case I wholly agree on the quailty from this deck. It's good enough for a home stereo...

...now THIS is a tapedeck flywheel:

If not exactly the same, it's very similar.

M80 cassette mech.



Nice big flywheel like the M90.

intresting. i have a jvc home deck from that same time hooked up one of the nice amps i have.
i am going to try the line out from it and see how the m80 sounds compared to it.