I have been looking for a nice example of this mini for a long time........ I am still curious as to who actually made these stereo's - JVC made the 3T13, a clone of the JVC RC-656LB minus a couple of features! This mini is very well built but it's also not easy to re-belt or work on despite it looking relatively easy! So onto the clean up.........all switches & pots were really gummed up & the side switches seized solid...........A good dose of Servisol sorted them out eventually........ Next the heads & reel idler tyre were filthy so a good half hour was spent to get the roller back to black, the heads shiny again & the reel idler that was covered in gunk restored to black Lastly before reassembly, check tape azimuth - This was a good one, it was way out in fact 3 & a half turns of the head adjustment screw!! The Result is a really nice & very heavy radio which despite the speaker magnet size, it sounds very good for a tiny little unit! Glad to have found my 3T18's little brother............ Et Viola:
Thanks for the photos! I was trying to find more information and it looks like Thorn and JVC had a joint manufacturing unit called J2T. I haven't found any information after that but I'll keep looking. I don't know if you saw this link in one of my posts or have read it before but Axel has an awesome write up in his now derelict forum on Japanese Contractors. Basically you could buy whatever you wanted and put together your own line of consumer electronics with all of the parts. Maybe what you are seeking is in here.... http://www.thevintageknob.org/tvk_t...7&t=2395&sid=041f70e5d006cc046a04e3d2ac40abf0
Well that didn't take much searching: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=36247 The dominance of VHS in the UK is often attributed to the links between Thorn (who owned a large number of TV rental shops) and JVC. Also in the 1980s and 1990s a large number of Japanese manufacturers set up factories in the UK to avoid EU import tariffs. As I might have mentioned before all Raspberry Pi computers are made in the factory Sony set up in Wales to make TVs.
ultra mickey mouse lol, if somebody gave me that id'e smash them over the head with a sledgehammer, never mind the boombox lol
Thanks Longman, sometimes websites don't come up in my searches due to location. You can read bits and pieces front this book about the joint venture, basically the kits were sent over and assembled. Axel's thread describes how some manufacturers bought different sections of the audio equipment a-la-carte from different manufacturers in Japan and made their own cut and paste equipment. https://books.google.com/books?id=P...onepage&q=jvc and thorn manufacturing&f=false
