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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.
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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.
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We have a section on our website that lists
cool electronic stuff you'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.
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Toshiba sold all sorts of things in 1982, including televisions, micro-cassette
recorders, coffee-makers, rice cookers and this RT-S893 ghetto blaster.
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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 traditional plastic. There's a nice little LCD clock and a handle underneath
the cassette buttons assumedly for carrying but this heavy monster is best left
stationary.
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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.
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Wow, what a cool system. Apparently, Casio wasn't the only company to cross-breed
a synthesizer and ghetto blaster. Fisher did also, and the result was this SC-300
Stereo Composer. This system is incredibly long, but feature-packed. We've got
detachable speakers, a vertical level meter, four band radio, auxilary input and
of course, the cool synthesizer mounted up top! The user can play the keyboard
and record directly to cassette. The keyboard's got a cool little LCD display which
displays the instrument that's being played and the key that's pressed.
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Aiwa's TPR-955 was sold around 1980-1981, but it was ahead of its time. The
digital LED counter provided instant access for up to 9 segments on a tape (separated
by blank space) and doubled as a sleep timer. The cassette-eject mechanism was
oil-damped, and the DM-511P option was a pair of microphones that mounted to the
top of the portable for professional-sounding live stereo recordings.
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