This Sony CFS-D7 had an almost unheard of feature for its day–digital tuning! The Sony product line was strong in the early ’80s. Unlike most manufacturers’ releases, their models seemed to shrink as the ’70s ended and the ’80s endured. This one sold for around $500 back in 1981.
Why is this man smiling? Bill is the proud owner of several large, glitzy ghettoblasters, including this Conion C-100F. But that’s not the only reason he’s grinning: he sold a system just like this one for US$700! We’re clearly in a seller’s market for boomboxes. We’re only praying that sales gurus at Sony, Panasonic, Aiwa and Sharp are viewing this site and thinking…
In the US, these surface under the Conion line, in Canada they appear as Clairtone. This Clairtone 7980 is an incredible piece in Chris’ collection, who resides in North Bay, Ontario. Here are the stats directly from the owner: a three-way speaker system, SIX speakers. The woofers are 8″, output power: 22.5 watts/channel. Tuner is FM/AM/SW1/SW2, the FM tuner is excellent. the tuning knob has a flywheel weight!! Cassette 1 is record/play and has programmable song search There is an LED-animated tape travel display. Cassette 2 is play only and has auto-reverse. Thanks Chris!!
I’d classify Mike Goode as a portable audio expert, as his collection is varied and large, and includes this Pioneer SK-21. Says Mike, “I can also tell you that the cassette boom-box initially appeared earlier than known here, I grew-up overseas in the old Panama Canal Zone, my father worked for the US. Government then. Panama due to the canal and commercialy strategic location was a re-distribution point for literally hundreds of Japanese brands being distributed through a free-zone to all of America, consequently, you could find a myriad of electronic products that never made it to the US.”
With its gold color and fold-out turntable, this Marantz PMS 6000 is exotic. Controls are up top, as is the cassette deck and AM/FM tuner. The PMS Series was was promoted under the manufacturer’s Gold series audio components in 1982.
Aiwa’s CS-770 was offered in 1981 and had the same high quality tape drive that the CS-880 had. It also featured D.S.L or Dynamic Sound Loudness, which enhanced low frequency sounds (now know as “bass boost” on current systems). The little digital display between the speakers is the random access system for the cassette drive.
We have a section on our website that shares cool, unusual electronic stuff we’ve found “in the wild” for a bargain. This Sharp GF-8686 would certainly fall into that category; we found this one at a flea market for $10 and it works perfectly! Those little silver button above the cassette door are part of the APLD, or the Auto Program Locate Device. This was a popular feature on the higher-end boomboxes, as was the was mic-mixing feature.
Toshiba (pronounced toe-shee-BAH) sold all sorts of things in 1982 including televisions, micro-cassette recorders, coffee-makers, rice cookers and this RT-S893 ghetto blaster.
The Lloyd’s V330 is one of the heaviest systems we have ever found. It’s over 30″ in length, and the detachable speakers are made with wood pressboard rather than plastic. There’s a nice little LCD clock and a little metal bracket underneath the cassette controls. You may notice the audio control knobs don’t quite match, but everything still works and sounds surprisingly good for a budget brand name.
Sony didn’t sell the biggest or loudest boomboxes in the world, but they were well made and their sound was terrific. This CFS-77 was no exception–it was sold up to 1983 and had most unusual floating tweeters positioned in front of the speakers. Sony was of the opinion that “less is more,” evidenced in the sleak shapes of their walkmans and televisions. We see this in the narrow CFS-77, CFS-99 and CFS-500.
