This thing:

I found it at the local Goodwill for $6. I used to wonder what had happened. Why after the '80s you could no longer find a good box for the most part. Now I know. People started accepting stuff like this. It became the norm. I don't like to be negative, but this box is just that awful. Sure, it's loud, but there's no bass responce or clarity to be had whatsoever. With stuff like this it's no wonder why the good boxes of yesterday all but vanished .

totally agree with you there DB..plastic crap

I agree newer stuff is crap, the sounds never as good and reliability is very much worse, something thats the same in consoles with previous generations of machines being much more reliable than current ones.

Consoles !!! wow we haven't seen or read that 'word' in a long time..

We still have the 'faux' wood veneered - speaker cabinet's from the last console we had purchased from sear's long ago they are very heavy very well made - just dont really like the verneered wood faux exterior but the construction is  made with 1 inch particlcle board all around with 10 inch woofer , 4 inch midrange 2 inch tweeter and a L-pad tweeter control that was rebuilt with newer driver's long ago - no need for a subwoofer with these floor standing couch ends table/speaker's very solid sound.

I didnt mean that sort of console James, I meant the games ones, Ive got machines from the 80's and 70's that can be trusted way more than the current ones which I keep hearing of having blown up or become corupted.

Service is worse too, where some of the older companies would still fix or supply parts for long out of production machines for reasonable amounts, the newer ones to the industry only repair really recent models and quite often charge a heck of a lot for doing it.

pan DT680 is plastic but one to have !

Ah, the old consoles. I've had a few of those over the years because people would toss them out. They'd leave them back in the alleyways for the garbage trucks to pick up so I'd snag one from time to time and keep it until I found a better one. I'd put the old one out by the road, and sure enough somebody else would come along and snag it again. It was kind of like a free exchange program that went on back in the '80s.

I had an old Wards Airline, ElectroVox, Mangnavox, and even a killer old tube type Silvertone. and Magnavox HiFi (mono). The sound from some of those was quite good. Not much on stereo separation, of course. but a lot better sounding than most people would think.
The only problem with them was that they just about all had a turntable/record changer with the old ceramic type cartridge. Those use a rather heavy tracking force, so they are not very kind to your records. They were also susceptible to feedback do to the turntable being in the same cabinet as the speakers.

I wish I would have kept one or a couple of them.

There were a couple of killer Fishers at that time too.

You know why the manufacturers produced stuff like this? Market demand. The vast majority of people shop by price. If you have a high quality unit for $100 and a low quality unit for $29 guess which one will sell out fastest? The companies are responding to a demand. Most people accept the junk today as good enough.The same people who think MP3's are quality sound. Go into any mass merchandiser, you will see cheap TV's, cheap DVD players, cheap radios, video games and not much else. Why? Because that's what sells. Never mind finding stereo equipment too,you really can't anymore, those days are over, everything is being integrated into TV's and phones and for most people that's fine.

I hate to sound so negative on this lovely forum...but that's the reality of the marketplace.

You couln't be more right.

Just one thing, though; When was the last time you went out looking for a radio? I can't speak for the rest of the world, but here in the US there almost arn't any to be found. There's simply little or no demand for them anymore.