Akai PJ-35 FL

Got this pretty much minty PJ-35 last week amazing condition and very clean.
It needed belts and the passive foams replacing, the front speakers were ok as they have fabric surrounds but they had gone very stiff and the left one had distorted mis-shaping the cone.
I Carefully used a hairdryer on the misshaped one and while it was soft reshaped it and used a weight to keep the shape until it cooled, worked pretty well. This also made the surround softer after it had cooled, so heated up the right speaker also, they both work very well now.
Had to wait 5 days for foams to arrive from China which was actually pretty quick, I couldn't find 3.5 inch foams anywhere else. The foams were good quality and fitted very well, bit of a pain removing the old ones as they are fitted directly into the speaker cabinet back no separate chassis.
So it's all done now looks very nice and sounds great.

 

Congrats - nice, a sort of special and rather rare AKAI.

 

Lovely Stuff

 

A rare one looks fab .

 

Does that box have tweeters above the woofers?

 

Yes it does and very good ones at that

 

Nice Dave, you need to get an akai pj 33 mate sounds much better and louder but dosen't look quite as cool, congrats

 

A nice unit in great condition.

I have had a red one (which looks as if someone once played football with it) since the 1980s.
It is only since looking at forums like Stereo2Go that I have seen what the speakers look like as mine didn't come with them.

 

Can i call it "Anatomy of a boombox"? you dissected this boombox , cleaned and fixed nicely

 

Well having just bought a red one of these in very good condition i can say it is superb, loud and very clear....only issue id say it's a bit light in the bass, but maybe my foams are stiff and the passives i guess will need doing but the belts etc are like new, so yes superb box. Dave only question i have is...there is a switch that boosts the treble but does nothing for the bass, does you're switch boost the bass and treble dave lad or just the treble....cheers great box

 

Well small update slackened off the drivers took out the passives and there small amaount of padding cross bars, put piles of padding in and now it has a really nice warm sound as the sound was very boxy before and these akai's sound much better without the passives as there is more room for the speaker to breath...so now she sounds great and is a keeper for sure

 

The 'Energizer' button on mine only enhances the treble, but as it also increases the volume the bass does increase slightly.
Yeah before I repaired the passives on mine I did use it without them and put foam over the openings, I don't think it sounded much different as it does now with the passives, also with the volume above half the drivers would distort as they reached the end of their travel limit with no resistance from a sealed enclosure. Maybe the padding you've put in stops this happening, I wanted to keep mine original and it sounds pretty good, but not much bass at low volume, crank it up though and the bass increases a lot.

 

Would love to compare you'rs and mine dave lad maybe they both sound the same who knows lad but before i did all this the sound was mickey mouse haha but i have been using her for a few hours now, i did the same to my akai pj33's but i havn't put in any padding in which i need to do for the reason you stated....you are welcome to mine any time my man if you fancy a trip to wales maybe i love mine more cuz it's red mate, just pure pawn

edit

whats missing on these dave is a loudness switch, makes all the diferance on the akai pj33

 

Hi mrp32Dave, I just came into possession of my grandparents old Akai PJ-35, beautiful machine but the cassette player does not work. It sounds like its spinning but making an awful loud noise and will not play tapes. I'm trying to open it up to clean it out and replace any necessary parts, but I can't seem to get the top piece off. I've taken out the four screws that seem to be holding it in, and the two control knobs on the left, but I feel like if I try any harder to pull it off it will break. Is there a trick to it, or am I missing something? Looking forward to your response and to getting this thing cleaned up and working!

Thanks,
Nikola

 

Hi, these are nice boxes and sound very nice in my opinion, there is one hidden screw in the centre of the battery compartment, hope this helps. Oh nearly forgot the cassette door must be open!

 

Ahh, thank you! That helps tremendously. I'll be checking back with more questions in the future.