Despite the fact that I haven't found anything decent or interesting at a Goodwill store in literally years, I still choose to shop at Goodwill from time to time hoping to get lucky and find something in the electronics section worth taking home with me. I mean I get it, time has moved on and most people who had cool stereos and audio equipment from the 80s and 90s either already donated them years ago, or they were simply tossed. Not only this, reseller awareness for vintage anything is massive right now, so the chances of anything vintage and potentially worth money being donated and not posted on Facebook Marketplace or eBay is slim these days. However, on this latest particular occasion, the odds turned out strongly in my favor! While killing some time on a road trip in southern Virginia recently, I stopped at a Goodwill and found something very rare and definitely up my street: It's a... VICTOR?? Seriously? A Japanese domestic market boombox from 1989 being sold at a local Goodwill in the southeastern United States? …and this isn't one of those cases where you can just find an identical model with the JVC badge on US eBay either... it's a unique model only to the VICTOR brand in Japan (The JVC RC-X610 is the closest US model built on the same chassis, but it's missing a lot of features the X55 has). Needless to say, I was extremely excited when I found it, and it was in my hands, at the cashier counter, and then in my trunk faster than two shakes of a lamb's tail. More specifically, this unit is the VICTOR CDioss RC-X55. Released in 1989, it was towards the high-end of what Victor offered in a boombox and depending on what catalogue you look at, it was either the 2nd best model or 3rd best model. Turns out, VICTOR had an entire line of boomboxes only sold in Japan and the X55 stuck around in the lineup for 4ish years even while different models came and went. It definitely has that late 80s look to it, and it is both much bigger in person and heavier than it looks I must say. Here's a snippet of the CDioss & COMPO catalog from 1991 showing the X55 and some related models: Not only does it have the trendy look of the time, the X55 is fully loaded with features, including a remote control, dedicated G-HORN EX subwoofer, LivePhonic wide stereo mode, TV stereo audio multiplexer, programmable clock/timer with backup battery, CD player, dual cassette decks with deck A being auto-reverse, and all of the recording/dubbing bits you'd expect. So, let's get back to MY X55... and it's not looking great: It really seems like mother nature is trying to take ownership of this boombox. There is a serious dust issue, and the entire unit is bathed in this caked on dirt that from the looks of it will not come off easily. It also seems like it was a condo for many happy (and well-fed) spiders which have now passed on from this world. I don't think I've seen a boombox with this amount of dirt to it and just lightly touching it was enough to make my hands show dirt and feel scratchy. On top of the insane levels of grime, Goodwill was asking $25 for this unit and it's original power cord, which given the state of it is a bit high, but hey, I enjoy a project, and I knew it was a high-end unit and probably sounded great if I could get it running... so the price of admissions was worth it to me. On the positive side, it had it's original clock battery installed which was still powering the timer and clock portion of the unit! Also, because I had so much time on my hands and had the car to myself for a few hours, I ran by Dollar General and bought 8 D Cell batteries and began fooling around with the unit. Shockingly, from limited testing, I confirmed it all seemed to be working properly except for tape deck A! I also wasn't able to test the CD except for laser power and focus. Another really great positive was that the unit didn't have any major scratches or scuffs, and the battery door was not corroded nor were the speaker grills rusty, so if the thing could be cleaned (with nuclear radiation or something of comparable strength) it would probably come up mint. Once I got back home, I was able to inspect it closer. I think the physical condition looks even worse under artificial light... that CD door window may never be shiny again if the dirt has scored into the plastic like what happens sometimes. Also, why would someone put tape over the CD door... the eject mechanism works perfectly fine and is very robust... ol' well, the tape just adds another level of repulsion to the state of this boombox. ...and here's the original clock battery again, the best looking part of the unit! It's a VICTOR Long Life AA Cell and they darn well aren't kidding about the long life part. It still has 1.1V left on it after 35 years, and might have outlived me if the bottom of it didn't start bursting out. This is a zinc dry cell as opposed to an alkaline cell, so even at it's worst point, it won't corrode too badly and cleans up relatively easily. I'm sure this is evident, but the only way to properly clean something that has reached this point is to completely dismantle it piece by piece and clean each piece with isopropyl alcohol. This is not something for the faint of heart, and I personally find boomboxes like this among the most tedious and fiddly to take apart primarily due to all of the lower quality wires and connectors, strange cable routing, and the fact that the parts usually have to come out in order. Nonetheless, I did get it eventually torn down to just the front piece, and the amount of dirt is... substantial. Seriously, it is very overwhelming realizing you have to clean every single nook and cranny of every single piece. But the results are worth it!! Turned out pretty good if I do say so myself... even if it did take 7.5 hours of solid cleaning! I used 71% isopropyl on every surface, and 99% pure alcohol on some of the worst surfaces... and I even had to use a magic eraser on the really gritty areas that had dirt literally baked in. In addition, I used a toothpick to scrape off the lines of dirt stuck between the seams of the badges and stickers. To top it all off, all of this needed at least 2 passes of cleaning to get all of the grime off. Finally, I used goo-gone on the tape adhesive portions on the CD door. I am very happy that the plastic and shiny bits were undamaged underneath that blanket of dirt and grime. As far as functionality goes, aside from cleaning the very dirty laser lens, I didn't have to do any repair work to it. Tape A needs belts, but Tape B works and sounds perfect. I am so thrilled to have found this rare Japanese beast at a Goodwill, and I'll be back here with an update on belts for the tape deck, sound impressions, and a remote I purchased to go with it! No AI was used to write any part of this post or doctor the images. Everything is human made and unedited.
I'm jealous!!! We call them "eggs" here but in Japan they call them "bubbles." Outside of a very few models, we were pretty much robbed of anything substantial and mostly got entry-level boombox junk. In the early days of the forum we had a few restorers that did ground-breaking work, unfortunately the threads were lost with hosting changes. Nickeccles shows off his impeccable work once in awhile and your project came out outstanding! These are some of my favorites, junk to gem. Be careful of the "LIVE PHONIC" button, I heard it hits 11. This is when the folded horns started getting really popular, I might have a small Sony with it but some of these are filled with baffles. Yours doesn't look like it had much of it but it was part of the advertising. I've been data mining some of these old brochures, this full version is down in the brochure thead.
Thanks for bringing the flyer to my attention! I love all the work this forum has been doing on scans of brochures... invaluable resource. Yes, I too love the junk to gem rags to riches posts! They are tons of fun to make and to read. This is actually the first boombox I've had with a proper bass horn in it, although I've seen many of them from my Japan shopping experiences (like the Sony DoDeCaHorn units). The whole idea seems vaguely similar to the BOSE Acoustic Wave Guide technology... As far as US vs JP boomboxes, my experiences lineup with what you mentioned. I never owned or let alone saw any boomboxes growing up that cost more than $100 or so. They were always the type of thing sold at the Walmarts and Targets, and were something relegated to kids or parties. Panasonic did seem to have some really nice office oriented stationary compact systems sold here in the 2000s that were pricy and slick. Incidentally, here's a closer look at the JVC US/Europe version of the X55. You can see that all of the neat features (auto-reverse selectors, timer/clock display, LIVEPHONIC button, status lights) have all been covered over but the plastic is still outlined ...and this was at the higher end of what we got in the US from JVC! It's still decent for sure, but nowhere near as clever as the X55. Reminds me of a base-level vehicle... all those empty button blanks! There was also this VICTOR RC-X65 unit that was functionally identical to my X55, except that the button labels were all printed in Kana/Kanji rather than English. Japan has always had a lower than average proficiency of the English language (perhaps never more so than now), but you can always find tons of English on signs, products, and in print... truly a strange relationship. Not sure what you mean about being careful of the LIVEPHONIC mode... hits 11?
Wow what a turn around! TBH, I'd have bought that too if I'd seen it for sale, and I'm not really a fan of JVC/Victor products. It's very similar to a Sony unit I have in the shed at work, that says Megabass, but the Japanese version says DoDecaHorn, which is a much cooler name if you ask me! I may have to ship you over to the UK to help clean some of my fire ravaged units. I'm sure most of the smoke damage will come off, domethin I'm both dreading and looking forward to doing oneday!
Still wondering what the Live Phonic Button does? I don't know what happened in the 90's but everyone seems to have pivoted to mini-systems here. aiwa Sales went ballistic with mini-stereos and everyone followed. I've always wondered who pioneered wave-guide small radios. Bose doesn't flinch taking credit with the 1983 Wave Radio, but all the Japanese Majors were doing it by the late 80's. Interestingly, some Bose Components were made by Marantz of Japan but the little radios were made in the USA! About the closest we got to a USA made boombox. Even more interesting is that MIT is a majority shareholder of Bose following the founder's death.
Not exactly "small" radios, but according to Wikipedia, it was an Australian guy in the 1930s who invented the idea. "The concept was termed 'acoustical labyrinth' by Stromberg-Carlson Co. when used in their console radios beginning in 1936. Benjamin Olney who worked for Stromberg-Carlson was the inventor of the Acoustical Labyrinth and wrote an article for the Journal of the Acoustic Society of America in October of 1936 entitled 'A Method of Eliminating Cavity Resonance, Extending Low Frequency Response and Increasing Acoustic Damping in Cabinet Type Loudspeakers'." https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/stromberg_acoustical_labyrinth_837.html
Jensen Speakers had a neat book from the 50's with speaker cabinet designs, a few had folded horn designs with interesting baffling inside the cabinets. I remember a discussion on audiokarma where someone built similar custom enclosures that would thump hard in club installs. There was also a thread there years ago about a new home build in Italy where the homeowner made the sub-basement out of concrete but it was molded as a wave-guide for his built in sub-woofer. I've got a full set of these Frazier Speakers, they fire towards the back and fold-around. I don't know the age of mine, they built them starting in the 50's but I think mine are 1970. It would be fun to compare all the boomboxes with it and see the differences.
Here is a U.K. unit complete with remote https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/307124949849 They never seemed quite as upmarket as the Panasonic Cobras. However I guess these came before the JVC KaBooms which could probably outboom a Cobra. @lupogtiboy Google search showed your catastrophe photos on the Tamiya Club forum. Did you have any kind of insurance ? Something I have noticed in insurance adverts is that they seem to regard "New for Old" as a great benefit. I can imagine them trying to give you ten new Roxels to replace the fire damaged boombox collection.
Unfortunately we didn't have anything on this storage area, so what is lost is lost. I'm trying to keep a positive head on it though, I didn't lose any of my walkman collection, so far only 2 boomboxes (x2 Hitachi 3D Woofers), my lovely Spendor speakers, and the speakers from my mk2 FH-7. Some of the damage is from where the firemen put the fire out, so it's water damage, though I'm hoping a lot of drying out and it should still work. I lost a LOT of my LEGO collection, and quite a bit of the retro consoles and computers I had there. But it's meaning we are now, as a family, sorting out years of stuff that we didn't need in the 1st place, so I'm seeing it as a 'silver lining' if you like, but I didn't want to lose what I did have in the way I've lost it! I'm just hoping the smoke damage can be removed, and the water damage isn't too bad! But we'll see in good time!
Thanks everyone for the positive comments! @lupogtiboy, really sorry about your LEGOs and loss of some of your belongings. I've been working quite hard on the boombox sporadically, and it's time for another update! Before I get to the *ahem...* horrors, I would like to start with some positives! I've been listening to this thing around the house for almost a month, and I am really quite happy with the CD Playback and sound quality. I think this is a first for me, but this is the first boombox I've heard that truly sounds best with all of it's **stuff** turned on. So jack up that GHorn level to max, and flip on that LIVEPHONIC, and it sounds truly excellent indeed. Plenty of full, rich bass, lots of treble, and even the surprise that is a hint of the midrange! It's actually a pleasure to listen to, and it beats out any Bluetooth speaker I've heard... even the wonderous DALI Katch G2. It even has pretty good stereo imaging for it's size, and that woofer alone is enough to make anyone scratch their head at how a boombox of this size can sound so big. The LIVEPHONIC feature is excellent as well, and it excels at spreading the sound around a larger room! Now I've heard tons of those '3D virtual surround sound' features, and most of the time I dislike them, so the fact that I am even turning on this LIVEPHONIC at all is a miracle. To put it simply, this boomer sounds great. Well executed sound signature in a great size, with some nice extras thrown in. Also fresh off the plane from Japan is the original remote. Yep, since this unit was not sold anywhere else in the world except Japan, I am forced to use Buyee to get one to me. Luckily, it didn't do much damage to my bank account. $7 for the remote, and $21 for shipping. So after the fees and miscellaneous costs, I'm in it a little over $30. What I got is a remote that is in excellent shape, has no corrosion to the battery area, and looks and works great alongside the main unit! I especially love the 'MD Volume' feature, which is one of those ever popular for the time motorized volume dials with blinky LED light that moves without anyone touching it! I've owned several boxes that can do this, but I really like the execution that JVC used. Where the remote thing kind of falls apart is when you realize what it is for. This remote is for 3 things and 3 things only: LIVEPHONIC, volume, and CD operation. You cannot control tape, radio, bass, function, or even power with the remote. I understand that with some of these functions it makes sense to leave them off the remote, and I can give things like mode select and tone not being on the remote a pass, but the remote could have been way more useful than it actually is. Maybe just having some type of remote for a boombox at all in 1989 was considered a luxury... Something else I really like is the digital displays. The CD readout display is pretty detailed for a boombox of this vintage, and it has TOC permanence as well as a track remaining number display on the right. Also, things like random, repeat, and program features are very clear to read. It could have benefited from a backlight of course, but hey, this is a midrange unit... and I'm expecting too much at this point. Finally, the separate clock and timer display is a neat touch and being able to see the time at any point clearly displayed in front of me is a majorly underrated feature... Now for the aforementioned horrors. Not too far into my listening journey with this unit (3 CDs), the laser decided to just blow out. It stopped reading discs and just started chirping away erratically and constantly until I pulled the plug. The laser was too dead to actually read anything from the disc, but it could still tell a disc was there. Anyways, I'll spare you the details, but I spent probably 3 hours getting to the laser, replacing it with a new Chinese part, and putting it back together. Spent $40 on the laser (KSS-150B). It's back on the road again working fine, and it can play any CD you throw at it.. even ones with deeper scratches. It still doesn't like CDRs at all, and regrettably, the original laser starting acting up after 10min with a CDR. I'll try to avoid CDRs from now on with this unit I guess... Now for the worst horror of them all, the cassette deck. Now, I did mention in my first post that the belts had gone in deck A, but deck B was still working. This was indeed true so I ordered a generic belt kit on Amazon with any size belt you could think of and just replaced them all. First, I want to strongly convey just how awful it is to do ANY work to these cassette mechanisms. Getting the assembly out and to a point where you can actually fit the belts around the belt path is a literal nightmare, and the worst sin of all is that the whole mechanism looks deceptively simple. But nope! 5 belts, each has to go on in order, some can only go on with the motor taken out, which breaks up the two decks, causing the belts and switches to come disconnected, then when you put it all back, a belt slips or comes off a pulley whilst attaching deck B to the motor bracket and keeping deck A secure in the motor bracket without screwing it into... ... ya know what... that's enough. I consider myself very experienced with belt changes, and this deck almost beat me. Sadly, the reward is bittersweet. Both decks now play, and the autoreverse is doing what it needs to do, and the relay play, dubbing, and record is working as it should... BUT, there is one major problem. This is a dual deck with only one motor. Two different types of mechanisms, two different belt paths. One motor. Do you see the issue? Two decks... only one speed adjustment. Yep, these two decks are playing at different speeds, and I cannot for the life of me get them to equal out. I've tried swapping out different belt sizes, changing belt thicknesses, and nothing. One deck is fast, the other is slow. I just put the entire thing back together and admitted defeat for now. If you want your music faster, put the tape in deck B. If you want it at the correct speed, put it in deck A. In the end, the cassette decks are the weakest point of this boombox. They don't sound particularly, great, aren't remarkably stable, and being a one motor wonder comes with unavoidable glitches. Maybe if I had a JVC belt kit the speeds would equal out?
Wow, I never really thought of that before! I am sure the proper belt kit would even it out, I have had even full sized decks where a "close enough" size belt changed the speed of the deck dramatically. I have been thinking of digging out and changing the belt in my Toshiba RT-7055 and on researching, was disappointed to see that it apparently only uses one belt. In hindsight, that might be the better option as it should mean both decks remain closer to the same speed if there is any difference in the belt spec. Pretty hard to remote control anything that is a physical switch or button, they obviously already did their budget on that fancy motorised volume control! "There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do"
The frustration is real, welcome to vintage audio. Honestly that's why some of this equipment was very expensive, not only did they hand assemble it but in some cases they did some run-in time cuz return for repairs was a profit killer. I have no idea why one deck would be fast and one slow without seeing it up close, maybe the belt thickness is throwing it off or your missing an idler tire? I can't believe you found a remote, I should look for my JVC Clavia and some other random stuff I have around here.
You know what's really crazy? This boombox has a physical power switch for off and on, but if you toggle the mechanical auto-reverse switch while it's powered off, it will turn on just long enough to change the head direction, and then turn off again... irrespective of what position the power switch happens to be in. It also features an off-the-shelf SHARP clock/timer chip than can toggle the power at will. This proves that the power switch is really just a soft power toggle that could be overridden easily by a remote with some simple electrical engineering. Ditto the tape decks, which could have been automated with solenoids. There's no hope for the manual tuning AM/FM radio. Like you mentioned, really it comes down to manufacturing costs, price point, and market positioning. The remote is CD only not because the unit can't do any better, but because JVC wanted you to pay for a better unit to get a fully remote experience. We are so used to this kind of treatment today from companies. (ie. 1 camera on the iPhone 16e, 2 cameras on the iPhone 17, 3 cameras on the PRO.) That's a good point, and clearly, I'd say at least 80% of this unit was all assembled by a person, rather than a slick assembly line with robots. All of the belts I used were the same thickness, 1mm or so, and from the same kit. So the belts are quite uniform in thickness. That's the problem really. I have two very different decks powered by the same motor... one simple piano key mechanism straight from a Big Lots shoebox recorder, and one more complicated auto-reverse deck (from a nicer shoebox recorder LOL), with different belt paths for each. I'm thinking I need mismatched belt thicknesses between the two decks. The only issue is, I can't just easily experiment with different belts on the fly; Each time I want to change drive belts, I have to completely disassemble the cassette assembly and remove both drive belts and then try to reconnect everything. I've checked the pinch rollers and idler tires, and they are all within spec. Side B (the cheap deck), doesn't even use an idler tire (but rather a gear with a nylon clutch behind it), but side A uses two idler tires, one per reel. The speed problem isn't that severe either. Side A is always almost exactly a musical half step lower than side B. I have perfect pitch, so this problem is nightmare fuel for me, but the average Bluetooth speaker wielding Taylor Swift fanatic probably wouldn't notice it at all. The remote was a rare find for sure, and it really enhances the experience of using the box. With even a few random wrong clicks, these boomboxes can be found aplenty on Japan Mercari for less than I paid for mine at Goodwill (although with more cosmetic damage that cleaning cannot fix), but finding the remote for anything this old is always a toss up. I am listening to mostly CDs on this thing, and the cassette decks at least work now! Overall very proud of how it looks and sounds now from the original photos. The state I found it in and the heavy cleaning and repair work I've done this far has caused a strange bond to form between me and this mid range boombox. The fact it was JDM found in a rural Virginia thrift is a neat story too. So, for now, I am calling this project completed(*) <-- with heavy asterisk use
