Remember when carrying around the biggest radio you could find was considsered the "in" thing?

Referred to as Boom Boxes, these radios were popular from the late 70's through the mid 80's. Some of them even had strobe lights built into them! I must confess...I had one, a real oldie. It had 2 cassette tapes, was about 2 feet long and heavy :P. I used to decorate it by tying a bandana around it.

Does anybody else remember these or even better, used to have one?               

Oh I remember these well....but did I own one? No way! Many kids had them during my Jr. High and HS years. They would get a tad annoying after awhile though!  >:(

  If you watch the first Ghostbusters  and you see Sigourney Weaver (Dana) in the kitchen putting groceries away, right before she discovers Zuul in her fridge, and you look to her right, you'll notice a small, white boom box (I prefer "portable stereo") with dual cassette player sitting on the counter playing some Air Supply song.  That's the very one I received as a Christmas gift in '83.  Same manufacturer, same model and even same color...

  groove ;) on...

I had several before I bought a bona-fide stereo system I bought with money I earned bagging groceries!

Were they also called ghetto blasters?

We called them ghetto blasters.  I had a black one with pink and sea green accents.  It was the coolest.  8)

They were called ghetto blasters too.  :)

I had one that I used for my car stereo.

I had a 1970 Buick Estate station wagon, and all it came with was an AM/FM radio.  I checked around, and they wanted over $250 to buy a radio and install it.  Instead, I found a boombox at a pawn shop, and bought a cigarette lighter power cord.  Total cost: around $125.  I then had AM/FM, Short Wave, and dual auto-reverse cassette!

And the quality was much better then what the built-in stereo sounded like.  I did the same trick about 10 years later when I bought a Ford Ranger pick-up.  I had only an AM radio, and the speakers were blown.  Because the speakers were rivited to the underside of the dash, replacing them would have been to expensive for me.  So I found a boombox with detatchable speakers, and placed them behind the seat.  The main unit fir perfectly in front of the gear shift, and was easy to access.

ANd many times, I have used boomboxes with RCA inputs as computer speakers.  This even let me record my own tapes, by playing 45 minutes worth of MP3 files, while recording on the boombox.

Of course, since then car stereos have gotten cheaper, and computer speakers have gotten better.  My last "boombox" now sits in the closet with my hurricane kit.

Boom Boxes always make me think of Caddyshack II when Randy Quaid comes onto the golf course with the giant boom box and starts messing with Mr. Young ;D

I remember someone having one of these with a 45 RPM record player in it. The player folded out of the front and had a storage compartment to hold several spare 45's. If I remember correctly it took something like eight or ten 'D' sized batteries. I think this was when I was in the eighth grade so it'd be '82 or '83.

-JM

I had one that I used for my car stereo.

I had a 1970 Buick Estate station wagon, and all it came with was an AM/FM radio.  I checked around, and they wanted over $250 to buy a radio and install it.  Instead, I found a boombox at a pawn shop, and bought a cigarette lighter power cord.  Total cost: around $125.  I then had AM/FM, Short Wave, and dual auto-reverse cassette!

And the quality was much better then what the built-in stereo sounded like.  I did the same trick about 10 years later when I bought a Ford Ranger pick-up.  I had only an AM radio, and the speakers were blown.  Because the speakers were rivited to the underside of the dash, replacing them would have been to expensive for me.  So I found a boombox with detatchable speakers, and placed them behind the seat.  The main unit fir perfectly in front of the gear shift, and was easy to access.

ANd many times, I have used boomboxes with RCA inputs as computer speakers.  This even let me record my own tapes, by playing 45 minutes worth of MP3 files, while recording on the boombox.

Of course, since then car stereos have gotten cheaper, and computer speakers have gotten better.  My last "boombox" now sits in the closet with my hurricane kit.


  God, how many people have I known whose boomin' system consisted of a boom box thrown onto the back seat...  Whoever's riding shotgun becomes the deejay...

  go ;)...

I recently aquired a JVC RC-M70JW with a saftey check date of 1-12-83 on the side of it. The antennas are kinda broken but it works like a charm! ;)

My best friend still has his Boom Box, and his "Member's Only" jacket. 8)

My best friend still has his Boom Box, and his "Member's Only" jacket. 8)

That's the line.  I had a lot of cheesy '80s items, but I never had a "Member's Only" jacket!

(erm, actually, I had a K-Mart knock-off my cheap-azz stepmother bought me!)
:-[

I had a couple of boomboxes in which the cassette deck was upside down.  Bad design.  Made it hard as hell to clean the heads.  You weren't supposed to clean the heads.  You were supposed to just buy a new one!
::)

That's the line.  I had a lot of cheesy '80s items, but I never had a "Member's Only" jacket!


I still remember getting my first (and only) "Member's Only" jacket.  It was 1986, shortly after I got married.

About 2 months after I got married, and my new wife thought she would "update" my clothes.  My normal then was pearl-button plaid western shirts, black jeans, tan cowboy boots with squared off toes, and either my red satin "US Marines" jacket, or when it was cold my grey ski jacket.

She bought me all new clothes, and did not ask me first.  She bought me some brown and blue slacks (polyester if I remember right), pastel coloured shirts, a grey sweater-vest, and a white Member's Only jacket.

Needless to say, the only thing I ever wore out of them was the jacket.  It made a decent windbreaker.  Within a few months She finally gave in and ended up wearing most of them herself.  We took the slacks and bought me some black slacks.

And the thing is, I still dress pretty much the same way today.  Although the western shirts are no longer plaid, they are now mostly a solid black or dark blue.  But they are still Western in cut, and have snaps.  And I am no longer able to find my square toed cowboy boots, so when I am on my bike I wear black engineer boots (with squared off toes).  8)

But no, I never have, and never will wear a sweater vest.  Nor will I ever wear one of those old funky "winbreaker vests" like Michael J. Fox wears in Back To The Future.  If it has no sleeves, it is worthless in my eyes.

Maybe that is one of the reasons we finally got divorced.  She could not stand my taste in clothes.  ;D

I went through two.  Neither were very big.  The second one had RCA input jacks for an auxillary source, so I MacGuyvered it into feeding a turntable and another tape deck into the channels and taught myself how to beatmix.  That was about 20 years ago.  I later inherited my mom's component stereo system.  I junked the 2nd Boom Box way back but had the first one up until about 10 years ago - I used to play tapes in it at night to fall asleep to.

I got one from salvation army last year but the tape player doesnt work very well which is sad...... Its got stereo LOCAL record which is awesome but it deosnt sound that good! (Recording my room in stereo and then listening to it sounds neat)

The boombox I had in the 80s also had stereo record and that sounded good......

I had a couple of boomboxes in which the cassette deck was upside down.  Bad design.  Made it hard as hell to clean the heads.  You weren't supposed to clean the heads.  You were supposed to just buy a new one!
::)


You hit the nail on the head. It was about this time in the 80s that things were starting to be manufactured that were designed NOT to be repaired, so a new one had to be purchased. Up until then things could be repaired. There was a TV repairman, a typewriter repairman (for when the now obsolete typewriter was a common item), someone would come to your house and repair the refrigerator. Although "planned obsolescence" had long been a concept, it was in the 80s that it hit full force and "built to last" truly became a thing of the past.  The first time this really hit home for me was about 1983 or so when I got my first cassette walkman. They were the hot item at the time. An acquaintance of mine who knew a lot about electronics said "when it breaks, and it WILL break, don't even try to get it fixed. Just buy a new one".  Although that sounds like nothing now, back then in the day of the TV and typewriter repairman, it was a jarring thing to hear that something simply could not be fixed.

Were they also called ghetto blasters?


Yes, they were casually referred to as "ghetto blasters". In today's repressively politically correct climate such a phrase would be highly frowned upon.

When I was in the 6th and 7th grades (around 1983-84), boom boxes became all the rage in my school and I had to have one. Not knowing doodley-squat about which brands were better than others, I bought a Soundesign boom box from K-Mart for around 80 bucks with money I'd saved up from my paper route. (In hindsight I wish I would have spent a little more money and got a Panasonic instead since they were much higher quality, but I liked the way the Soundesign looked so that's what I went with.) It was still pretty cool though.

The cassette player crapped out after about 2 or 3 years, but the radio still works and it's still sitting inside the enclosed patio at my parents' house.  ;D

I got one from salvation army last year but the tape player doesnt work very well which is sad...... Its got stereo LOCAL record which is awesome but it deosnt sound that good! (Recording my room in stereo and then listening to it sounds neat)

The boombox I had in the 80s also had stereo record and that sounded good......


How much did it cost? probably not much since it's over 30 years old? ???

No I think it was 9.99 if I remmeber right so i guess ya cant complain......

The AM radio works excellent :)