RCA RS2035: The almost portable, weird, cool?, and terrible mini system.

The year is 2005. A bunch of executives from Thomson Electronics are at the annual corporate yacht party getting ready to wrap up another year of declining sales and waning interest in their poor quality RCA brand audio products. Understandably, even the sheer knowledge that these business men and women work for the company behind $9.99 mono shoebox recorders (that randomly record over saved audio) and kids karaoke machines (that will be a neato gift at Christmas and landfill waste by new years) is enough to create a deep state of depression and despair. Hopelessness... that's what these folks all faced on that yacht as they drank the night away and prayed for a miracle.

But that's when it happened. A light. A bright and beautiful light. All of these poor overworked execs saw it, starting off in the distance as merely a twinkle and then fast approaching the boat with purpose and speed. This light... was just for them. Those that were on the vessel (which had not passed out from strong liquor or jumped overboard to their demise as was the sad case with the LYRA MP3 team) began pointing and leaping... leaping for joy! What was this light? How would it save us? How would it help revitalize the RCA name forever?

As this strange glimmer began approaching the party of disheveled business leaders, it became obvious that it was not just a light, but in reality a UFO, and straight from Mars no doubt! It was not long before this strange little Red and silver UFO landed on the top deck of the yacht (smaller than average UFO, bigger than average yacht, but I digress) and a short, wrinkly little green alien emerged... just like in the movies! The alien stood at the foot of his ship motionless to allow the drunken partiers to gaze upon it and process what they had just seen. Once it became clear that the people were expecting a message from the alien, it began to speak... in English!

This alien happened to be a very smooth talker, and quite persuasive... even amongst a group of drunken Thomson Brand executives on a noisy yacht, he had a message to deliver, and he was determined to get it across. He explained how he was personally disappointed in the RCA name, and raved in his monotone voice that he was 'very mad' that his RCA LYRA MP3 player wouldn't work on Windows XP, and that his RCA CD player stopped reading discs most of the time. This alien also knew that RCA had once been at the forefront of space travel electronics, and that now... bargain bin brand. This alien (now very shaken and upset as he listened to himself speak) said that if RCA didn't improve, private equity would eventually step in and take over and slap the RCA name on phone mounts, water flossers, and electric kettles. He then cursed a little and held up his RCA portable products in an angry and authoritative way at the now tired and weary bunch of party goers. After this, the alien (now tired out from his lengthy and spirited speech) went back up into his vessel... and left... never to be seen again.

But that's when the group noticed that he had left something behind... the blueprints for a mini stereo system with alien tech! Powered by a 300 watt nuclear fusion surround amplifier and able to read strange alien music CDs of 100GB or more, the group was beyond excited to see such a cool breakthrough product that had a look to it unlike anything earth had ever seen before! Sadly, the excitement wore off quickly when the finance team (who were on the lower deck crying and throwing up) reported that the unit would cost more than $3.50 to manufacture.

BUT, hope beyond hope, RCA did what RCA always does. They came through. RCA made something, and they made it real cheap, and it sucks, but here it is, and rumor has it it's directly inspired by that legendary encounter:



This RCA RD2035 from 2005 blends wacky alien-like design with useless gimmicks, and last but not least... RCA 'Signature Sound'. I purchased this thing new on eBay recently because of how crazy it looks! I was definitely paying attention to big box stores at the time, and I never saw anything like this anywhere. Apparently, this stereo system was offered in blue initially, but the red color came out as a Target exclusive.



The first thing you probably notice about this unit is the volume control... it has its own screen! As you turn the volume up and down, the dots fill in from empty to full to let you know how loud it is, and the main screen also gives you a numerical readout of the actual volume. Useless? Sure. Cool? Yeah, kinda!



Now, you are probably thinking that the display has a music visualizer or some really cool animations when it's playing music right? Nope. The secondary dot display just plays a slow, repeating pattern that is very repetitive and boring, and it in no way changes between songs, modes, or volume levels. Missed opportunity, but there again, RCA is all about that.


Another completely useless feature that RCA spent good money on is the motorized CD door. Yep, you read that right... the CD door which would be perfectly fine as a manual spring loaded clasped door (like most boomboxes have) instead uses a fancy motor and gearbox to open it and close it. In fact, they went to a lot of trouble to design a circuit that detects if fingers are in the way of the door closing or opening and activated a clutch of some kind to save the motor and gears. I appreciate the dedication... but really?? A motorized door on something that is begging for something manual? Being motorized actually slows down the process of putting in a CD and makes the entire process way more clunky.



Also, speaking of the CD door, CDs look really cool playing in this thing! I could stare at that spinning disc for more time than I care to admit, and the grooves on the inside of the CD door make it seem like it's moving really fast. Overall nice feature I'd say.



As far as the actual functionality goes, that's where we can really see that costs were cut. This unit only has two modes... CD and Radio. No AUX in, no cassette deck hidden anywhere clever, just a CD player and AM/FM radio. I mean it's really all that I need to be happy, but I'm sure you could have purchased a boombox at this time with CD, Radio, Cassette, and AUX for the same price or cheaper as this thing was.


My favorite thing about this little system is the remote... shaped like a UFO and everything! You can do everything you need to from this remote, even remotely open and close the motorized CD door! Remote feels very cheap, but it is pretty solid to be fair. I do really like the soft rubber buttons that feel very squishy to push. One thing that I definitely do not like is that some buttons have text labels, and some just have icons. The shuffle button is a picture of a die, and the FM stereo button is a picture of two speakers, but the rest of buttons mostly use text... strange stuff and very disorienting.


The main question is sound quality. How does the system sound? In a word... terrible. No bass, no treble, just mids. The unit does have X-BASS and several of those genre specific presets (Rock, Pop, Jazz, etc.), but those do literally nothing at all to improve the sound, and they usually just make it sound wonkier than it already does. These are like 4inch drivers, and they are the only speakers the unit has, so of course it's not going to sound good. But WOW, I am constantly shocked by how unexciting this thing makes music sound. I would honestly rather listen to my iPhone jammed up to my ear than this hideous beast.

I guess my summary is this: I am always drawn to weird looking stereos and music devices, and I love this thing for the hideous and unhinged state that it is. Does it sound good? Nope. Does it have some unique gimmicks? Yes!