I haven't done many reviews recently even though I picked up a couple old table radios before some economic hardship hit, but when I bought this on Saturday I thought your readers would find it interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tEGuYiD0Qc
This 9 lbs. hunk of late 70's radio is the Sharp GF-8080x. The FM performance is really strong, I was able to pull in stations pretty clearly that my other radios can't get at all. I'm a few batteries short of the six D-cells this requires, but I'm looking forward to better testing the AM performance. Initially the AM is impressive, though, with stations from Sacramento and Boise coming in at night. On SW I was able to get six or so stations, whereas usually here I can't get anything. My feeling is that the newer digital tuners could probably do better, but this is definitely a quality radio from a time when that mattered.
It's also very manly. My five year old setup a bunch of plastic soldiers on in today because "it was their base". If any of the Sharp engineers are still alive I'm sure they'd be happy to hear that.
"Serious" radio collectors tend to look down at boomboxes, but I confess I have a fondness for them. They all have different strong and weak points just like any other radio. Some have shortwave bands; older Sony and Panasonic boxes tend to have very strong AM/FM reception. I have a newer JVC that I think has a DSP chip, the FM reception is so good.
Posted by: Keith Beesley | August 12, 2013 at 12:10 PM
I love all the boomboxes of that era from JVC, Toshiba, Sony, Panasonic, Hitachi, and others.
Posted by: herculodge | August 12, 2013 at 12:14 PM
I think as time went on boomboxes became more centered on the boom and less on the radio, but some of the classics are pretty nice all around.
Posted by: nathanjr | August 12, 2013 at 03:31 PM
I love the green on black dial. That is very cool looking----easy on the eyes for DXing too.
Posted by: Angelo | August 16, 2013 at 08:35 AM