http://www.dustygizmos.com/index.htm "I predict that 80s’ boomboxes could one day become quite collectable. Relatively few of those giant audio abominations will have survived and examples in mint condition must by now be extremely rare." There's a boatload of gadgets on this site and some radios....
Interesting website. The Pioneer Amplifierless record player is fascinating and the styling looks as if it may have inspired the 1970s Philips UFO. However, he seems very dismissive of Boomboxes. Someone should show him a JVC Kaboom. Less than ten years ago I saw and heard one of those doing one of the things it was designed to do : filling a School Hall with music (and doing a good job of it). There is still a need for that hence the number of Portable Bluetooth speakers the likes of Sony make and sell. He also seems to have a strange opinion about Vinyl claiming it disappeared from the mainstream for 30 years. With well over 500 stores you don't get much more mainstream than Argos as a UK retailer. Looking through my Argos catalogue scans, turntables didn't really start to disappear from "Midi" Audio systems until around the year 2000, with an Aiwa system still coming with one in 2002. From then they were more commonly offered as an add on item, with a full size Sony Turntable appearing in the 2003 catalogue. Later on the turntables being offered were mainly Midi size with built in Phono pre-amps, and in many cases USB connections for ripping using a computer. I wouldn't claim that any of this equipment was more than Mid-Fi but my point is that turntables never really disappeared from the mainstream market. How else were Mums and Dads expected to play the singles they bought in their teens ? Reading some articles on the site I get the impression the Author in in his 70s or even 80s so maybe that explains some of his views. Still worth browsing through though. He has even tried to research the history of Benkson, who Nick mentioned in his last post.
He has a nice cross section of old crusty goodness, that Pioneer Portable Turntable from 63 has to be one of their first products, at least for audio. A lot of his equipment is new to me, making the site very fresh.
