1979 WHICH? Magazine Boombox Tests & Verdicts

This arrived this morning interesting read, so thought I'd post it here:
Models reviewed and 1979 price:

Aiwa TPR-905K £120
Aiwa TPR-950K £190
Alba CR34 £90
Binatone Sportable MkIV £70
Crown CSC-656L £170
Ferguson 3T09 £70
Grundig RR800 £150
Hitachi TRK-5280E £110
Hitachi TRK-8080E £150
JVC RC-636L £130
JVC RC-828L £200
Panasonic RS-4150J £140
Philips AR 774 £110
Prinzsound STR4040 £70
Sanyo M9970LG £140
Sharp GF-9191E £190
Superscope CRS-2104 £120
Toshiba RT8600S £120
Toshiba RT-8710S £180
Waltham W143 £70

Here's the mag, I've kept the images original quality otherwise the're hard to read:













Back in 79 I was on an Apprenticeship and I think my weekly wage was about £28?, so most of these seemed very expensive. I did however buy a Ferguson 3T09 I can remember taking it everywhere with me, and sitting with mates at the local shops blasting out tunes, I was the only one who had anything like it and everyone thought this lowly model was great. I bought another a while ago kind of a personal grail, doesn't sound as good as I remember but still pretty loud.

Anyway back to the present does anyone have any or maybe even all of these! I have 7 of them?


Ferguson 3T09


Philips AR 774


Hitachi TRK-8080E


Sharp GF-9191E


Alba CR34


Toshiba RT-8710S


Panasonic RS-4150LJ

 

Wow, the jvc 828 more expensive than TPR 950 and sharp 9191 and hitachi 8080.
Good to know, thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks for the scans.

 

Really interesting to see the original values

 

Very interesting - thanks for sharing.

 

In 1978 I started my apprenticeship on £25 a week so that sounds about right

I'm not surprised; spending almost three weeks wages on a boombox. I expect the sound was great compared with the Shoebox style cassette recorders or cheap radios most people had. What surprises me is how many boomboxes Which found to test. In 1979 there were only three Stereo ones in the Argos catalogue including your Ferguson




I remember seeing the Superscope by Marantz in Debenhams. For anything else you would probably have to go to a more specialist audio retailer.

 

super

 

Thank's for sharing the Which article Dave
Very interesting!!! - brings back a lot of memories
Like you, i was an apprentice back in the day on about the same pay as you
My best mate had the Sharp 9191E, I was so impressed i had to have one.
When i ordered mine i received a 9191X which had an additional small fine tuner knob on top of the large tuning knob
My mate was not happy that i had the latest model with the extra knob!!!!!

Interesting to compare the prices from 1979 with today's money
The £190 price of the 9191E would be nearly £900 if buying today

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/resources/inflationtools/calculator/default.aspx

 

I pointed out in a couple of threads on the Hoopla platform that in 1979 you could buy a new Tomos moped for £200,
(special offer price today £895) which ties up with your calculation above, or a new Honda CB100N motorbike for £505
on the road, which is what I spent my money on.

 

Interesting stuff .

 

This is pure gold! Love those old Which reports! Love Argos as well!

 

It looks as if you missed this one as well

http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/1987-which-stereo-take-aways.734/

What a difference eight years made.

It might be worth searching for more Which reviews. They were / are a monthly magazine but the next month they would be reviewing TVs or Microwaves etc.
I'm sure there must have been a Boombox review every year or two.

Were there any notable machines in 1988 ?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-...sh=item2168f87712:g:LZwAAOSw7D1cQw1Q&LH_BIN=1