Restoration of Old BOOMBOX - GHETTO BLASTER | Retro Repair Guy Episode 20
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2024
- The Retro Repair Guy teardowns and restores an old 90s retro Boombox / Ghetto Blaster. For this restoration, I replaced all the capacitors, repaired the cassette deck and cleaned it all up. This Boombox is now ready for some retro partying. Panasonic RX-CS780 portable radio with cassette deck.
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𝗝𝗢𝗜𝗡 𝗥𝗥𝗚'𝗦 𝗖𝗨𝗟𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗘𝗫𝗖𝗟𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗞𝗦: / theretrorepairguy
The twentieth episode of the Retro Repair Guy. A series aimed at retro and vintage electronic repair and restoration.
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00:00 Snazzy Intro
00:15 Brief History of the Boombox / Ghetto Blaster
01:23 Show Intro
02:28 initial testing and disassembly of the Boombox
05:16 Repairing and recapping the old radio
07:54 Cleaning the casing
09:00 Repairing the cassette deck
10:06 My two cents
11:46 Reassembling the Ghetto Blaster / Boombox
15:07 Before and after
16:49 Wrap Up
17:50 Testing the newly restored retro Boombox
19:32 Credits
©️ All music under license from Soundstripe (Get 20% OFF www.soundstripe.com/join?id=V...)
Footage, pics and information:
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• Wikipedia & Wikimedia Commons
• The Internet Archive
• Other media featured is either marked as public domain on Google Images, used with permission or shown under fair use law. Every attempt is made to contact others before including content. If something has been forgotten please don't hesitate to let me know and I will fix it.
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#restoration #boombox #ghettoblaster #retro #retrorepairguy - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Make sure to watch the latest Christmas episode I have two giveaways! th-cam.com/video/lYiceEtB4e4/w-d-xo.html
A lot better than the 'rubbish' they make today !!
Hi Patrick. Very true! Thanks gor watching!
Do you know Dankpods
All your videos bring me back to the 80s and 90s...those were the best years...thank you for giving us all excellent tips on how to repair stuff but you also giving us great memories.
Thank you! It's exactly what I wanted to achieve. I loved the 70s,80s and 90s and every restoration brings me a little closer to those times.
Perfect restoration done by you sir ❤❤❤🙏🌹
Thank you so much! And thanks for watching!
I have a panasonic rx-ds660 with CD player and digitally controlled fm radio and tape player and remote control, it's a fun getoblaster, boombox
That's a nice earlier model made in Japan. Thanks for watching.
Great work
Hi Tariq! Thank you and thanks for watching!
SAVERS find. I recognize the tag. nice. i get my electronics there too.
Hi! I'm in Montreal, Canada we don't have Savers Find but I'm sure they are all connected like Walmart. And I'm sure you guys have better stuff than us! Thanks so much for watching!
Was thinking about this you should plum a utility sink in your basement might keep mrs. Rrg happy. I finished cleaning my tech work shop today and was able to fix my workshops drain to make it usable again
We have three sinks in the basement and Mrs. RRG doesn't want me using two of them (don't ask), the third is a tiny bar sink next to my popcorn machine. Only thing would make her happy is if I could plumb a sink in the shed! But I am working on a plan in the Spring for a laundry room and thought I would make counters and a large sink if possible, that might appease her. Meanwhile she's already been shopping the last two weeks for a new dishwasher.
Thanks for sharing your video. What a great repair. Kind regards. Paul.
Hi Paul. Thank you very much happy to see you're enjoying some of the older ones as wel!
@@RetroRepairGuy your very welcome. I've been working on a few large karaoke bluetooth machines at the moment. I really enjoy it.
Looking forward to this one watching items I didn’t get around to
Really? I thought you been around a while. Make sure you catch up on all of them and thumbs up! 😁
@@RetroRepairGuy have been since early days but didn’t get to this one yet
Nice video, thank you!
Hi! thank you and thanks for watching!
Great job looks like New! Greets from Marcel The Netherlands Europe 👍🙂👌
Hi Marcel! Thank you! I love to know people from all over are watching!
It’s interesting looking at the physical equalizer with all of its components and realizing that a simple app that you can download on your phone will blow transform the sound immensely. You can massively increase the deep bass with it and make that already great sounding boombox sound even better with loads more bass.
Hi. I must admit I am a little confused by your comments. You mean like plugging the phone into the boombox with that app installed? I'm sure it would help. The problem with this boombox however is that it gets loud which is great for parties but it's lacking some quality. Maybe replacing the speakers might even do it.
@@RetroRepairGuy yes you are correct; playing a song from your phone with the eq app versus that same song from the boombox’s radio, cd or tape cassette sounds massively better. Imagine if instead of a physical eq, panasonic created a digital one that has massively more headroom and customization. I’m a tech geek. 🤓
@@Mabeylater293 But in a way that's "cheating" 😂 Agree and some of these things could use an upgrade. I'm just trying to fix them and hear them as good or as poorly as they were back then. But I'm not against the occasional mod!
Good job
Thank you very much! Please check out some of my other restorations and subscribe to see more.
Awesome video!!!!!
Thank you I appreciate it and thanks for watching!
Thank you for the fantastic video.
I think that one of the reasons why you experienced sub-standard quality in that Panasonic boombox's construction like you mentioned in the video was because of when it was manufactured. That boombox is a product if its time. Amongst fellow boombox collectors that particular boombox was made during what they refer to as "the decline era." Around the late 1980s, many boombox manufacturers were cutting corners left and right to decrease production costs in any way possible. That's why Japanese brands started making their boomboxes outside of Japan during that time and the quality went down considerably as you noticed.
Now, don't get me wrong because in my opinion no boombox that I've experienced is what I'd refer to as high quality audio equipment. But in general, boomboxes before the decline era were better made and at least a lot more sturdy compared to those made during the decline era. It's subjective on whether the older boomboxes actually sounded better than the newer ones and there was a large variety of boomboxes made in the old days. Thus, I cannot make a blanket statement on whether the older ones flat out sound better than the newer ones.
Thanks again for the video and thanks for rescuing that old Panasonic boombox from the junkyard. Even if it doesn't sound the greatest after all of your hard work, it still can be used for what it was originally intended for - cranking up tunes in the garage or at a backyard barbecue.
Thank you very much! And yes I agree and in the end, we just want to "blast" some music! Thanks so much for watching!
Very nice! I am currently restoring an old Panasonic DT-690 I found on the side of the road on moving day 2 weeks ago here in QC
Hi! Both radios look a lot alike but I believe the DT-690 you picked up is of better quality. Someone had wrote to me about this radio before. The one I fixed is a beautiful relic of the 90s but the inside was not as good quality as the stuff I usually fix that was made in Japan in those years. You should post some pics or a video once it's fixed. Thanks for watching!
Enjoyed this one alot 🤟
Thanks Creek!
Great video
Love it
Thank you! Please make sure to check out more and thanks for watching!
Early 70s boombox were definitely made more durable and better quality, as the late 80s rolled around they were made flimsy and not as strong and heavy
Hi Francisco! Totally agree with you and this one was from the 90s so you can imagine just how much worse it was! I still restored for the pleasure of having a functioning Boombox from the era.
@@RetroRepairGuy thanks for the reply, you did a great job, do you restoration for the public. Take care
Hey, just to say really enjoyed the quality of your work and videography. I've restored a few as I find it difficult to leave an easy repair on the shelf, now there's a' boomwall' of them!
Hi! Thank you so much I always appreciate hearing that. You should see my house I have stuff all over the place I don't know where to put it anymore! I keep acquiring more stuff and figure I'll get around to it! Thanks so much for watching.
now you're making me want a boombox...
Hi! Well if I can suggest; take a look around there are so many at thrift stores and garage sales. There is plenty of cheap good ones out there worth getting. I have eight of them here. But I would recommend staying away from the newer ones being sold as retro units.
@@RetroRepairGuy Appreciate it!
First time here, new subscriber, I found this video very calming and satisfying.
Hi there and welcome to the channel! Thank you it's the vibe I'm going for. Hope you check out some of the others.
Everytime I see a boombox I think of the movie Say Anything
Who doesn't! I actually saw it this week after finishing the deck! Lol Still great!
Enjoying your videos. I have an old boombox I need to get back to fixing up. The tape deck is a lost cause though. I don't have any audio tapes anyways so my plan is to do a bluetooth mod for the tape portion.
Thanks so much! A Bluetooth mod to replace a deck sounds interesting. BTW i get cassettes at the thrift store all the time for 99 cents. Maybe check one out or garage sales. You could also find a tape deck I'm decent shape worth repairing. Let me know how the mod works out. Do you plan to make a video?
Again well done. Would love to see you get my old Telefunken CR-8200 working.
Maybe we could arrange something for a future episode. Thanks for watching!
BIG DISCOUNT on items for sale on my website for a limited time only. The items were restored as part of the show and will help support the channel. retrorepairguy.com/product-category/electronic/
There is also a new Donations link for the channel square.link/u/xikGzrwa where you can make a ONE TIME or RECURRING monthly donation. It's completely secure and all proceeds go to the channel. I will include your name in thank you credits of the video, if you give me permission to do so.
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THANK YOU ALL!
Hi everyone! The store is up and running. I'll be adding more items in the days to come as well as merchandising for the channel. Prices are in Canadian dollars. Purchases of items fixed by me will include a signed certificate of authenticity that states the item was fixed by Retro Repair Guy. Thank you for your support! retrorepairguy.com
Nice find on one of the fully mechanical auto reverse Panasonic bi-amp boombox!
@@general682002 Thank you! I have some nice finds once in a while in the thrift stores. Thanks for watching!
@@RetroRepairGuy no problem! BTW, how much was it on that boombox before sold?
@@general682002 If I remember correctly at the time it was $15 CDN so about $11 USD. The big thrift stores around here got bought by Walmart and now charge about triple. They receive everything for free and look up eBay and try to charge a little less than asking on eBay. Makes no sense.
@@RetroRepairGuy interesting! You didn't jack up the price, you sold whatever on not a huge number and give someone happy to keep it going!
Love your sink basin scrub a dub. I’m sure it triggers the trolls, rofl
Lol BTW Mrs. RRG's favorite in the shows and insists I keep it in. As long as I never hear about copywrite problems again I'm OK with it.
@@RetroRepairGuy , nothing is more important then keep the Mrs. happy.
yea the CS780 isnt up to par with the DT-680/690.. the 780 is a good garage radio at best.. cant beat the bi-amplification.. cant really beat $10 for that.. surprised you didnt tear down the speaker cabs and get the dust bunnies out of them..
Hi. Agree powerful but not the best. Yes it crossed my mind to open them but once I was finished with the inside falling apart on me I decided to leave it as is. Thanks for watching!
Those speaker wire on the back rolled up is adding a nice coil. Unwind them I bet it does sound some better.
Hi. I tested the unit way before I coiled the cables in the back to make it nice for the video and its sound issues are not caused by this but rather because the radio is simply not that good quality and neither are the speakers. Coiling the cable in the back (as the manufacturer intended anyways) would cause in my opinion such a tiny increase in inductance that it would most likely not be heard by most people and especially in such cheap equipment. Thanks for watching!
@@RetroRepairGuy in a way your right I'm too spoiled with high end audio 😉
@@Dutchamp Well better be spoiled than not! In my case I think my old ears probably can't handle high end audio anymore.
@@RetroRepairGuy absolute nonsens I'm a hear patient with hearing aid, I miss from 1Khz till about 3khz to -35db and even without wearing them I notice quality differences very well. I builded tubeamps and speakers.
Every time i most confuses speaker wire to insert, it should be come with cable pin
Hi! Do you mean the wires for the speakers? If you look at the wire they are all grey but have a very tiny color line and it matches with the retention clip. They made one blue, red, grey etc. Thanks for watching!
All those boomboxes with removable speakers were kind of garbage back then and they were real popular between 90 and 94 everybody I knew in high school had one they were all broke most of times the speakers wouldn't reattached to the side because somebody would brake the plastic the volume knobs would have problems with the potentiometers the whole thing's were hit and miss I always hated them on top of that it's a Panasonic that's like the the sanyo generic version Walmart crap back in the day back then JVC and Sony where still Kings
Hi Joseph. Yes I agree completely. Was still fun to restore it for the nostalgia. Now it sits on my shelf unused. Thanks for watching!
Love the old boomboxes. I just bought an RCA RP-7950. Sounds great, but the left channel is scratchy and distorted at low volume. Turn it up and seems fine. Does it the same when switching speakers, so it's not that. Any ideas?
Hi Jason. I love them as well but they're getting old and need maintenance! Same with the description of your problem. As I always tell people, it's very hard to diagnose without having the equipment in front of me, however, since you eliminated the speaker, could be old capacitors or one of the transistors, hard to say. The problem could be in the preamp or bias output. Also is this a problem that occurs with all the audio (radio, cassette and CD). Never a bad idea to recap these things if you want to keep them around for a while and take it from there. Thanks for watching!
@@RetroRepairGuy yes, it's all audio (radio, cd, tape). All the same. Thank you for responding!
@@jasonwilliams6005 My pleasure. Wish I could help more.
The radio sounds really good actually for 10 bucks its really nice I had s sony boombox my cassette player did not work and was trying to fix it my mom got it for Christmas or birthday one time and it broke In last summer I'm trying to find a good sony boombox so I can listen to one of my favorite movie soundtrack album's btw what kind of sony should I get that cost not that much I'm from Atlanta and its hard to find good that's cheap 😆
Yeah in the end for $10 was not my complaint just that I got somehow a bad unit with many things that kept breaking. Off the top of my head no particular Sony models come to mind but Panasonic did make some pretty nice ones and so did Sharp. Are you looking for a large or medium size boombox? Do you absolutely want a Sony? You don't have any thrift stores around or yard sales? Those are the best to get good prices as eBay is getting crazy.
@@RetroRepairGuy Yea I just like a medium size tho I found a good radio at a goodwill store that was the same exact price for what u found I think it was like a sharp small boombox the same but still I want a Sony just like yours size with the Panasonic
It's a pity that you didn't play around with the S XBS knob, I would have liked to hear what difference it made to the sound. I fully understand that I'm not going to hear what you hear but at least I can hear the difference...
It would also have been great to talk a little bit about the amplifier section of this unit, considering that it's using two stereo amplifiers to drive the speakers... You pointed out that it was using those green transistors for one of the amplifiers but I thought that I saw an amplifier IC that was attached to the heatsink, which IC was it using?
I have a similar model of that Panasonic boombox that someone threw out, it doesn't have it's original speakers but it is bi-amped and full of spiders... I haven't had the opportunity to open it up and have a good look around inside. I was thinking about restoring it but it appears that as good as it looks, Panasonic really had given up on brand building by that point in time and totally cheaped out, pity though.... It could have been a really good boombox. .. I love it's styling, it doesn't look like a bush pig and it definitely screams 90's.... Now I'm tempted to open my one to check out it's amplifier section....
Hi Peter. Yes they really did cheap out as I stated in the video. Sorry I try to sometimes get through some of the phases quicker and I don't always film the testing of everything or the entire repair process for fear that people will get bored; some want more, some want less. The power amp IC is a RVILA4108R according to the schematic. But I can't find any more information about it. I watched the part about the green transistor. This is Q311 and I did say "the amplifier transistor" because it's a 2SB1105 which is a Darlington Power Transistor but essentially, yes the IC6 is the Power Amplifier. I also love the styling and it does scream 90s which is why I was happy to restore it nonetheless. Thanks for watching!
@@RetroRepairGuy thanks for this! I'm going to download the datasheet for the amplifier IC... I want to know a bit more about it, there weren't to many boomboxes that used bi-amped outputs... That makes this unit rare!
I must also commend you for mentioning V loss when testing capacitors! There really isn't a lot of people who take note of this really important measurement of capacitors! In most cases, V loss is a more important measurement than ESR.... A high ESR capacitor that's been used as a power supply filter is essentially not doing anything, it might as well not even be there but a capacitor with high V loss is like a short circuit... ESR gives you unwanted ripple and power supply noise but high Voltage loss gives you a dead transformer and on rare occasions fire 🔥...
Where capacitors are used to decouple one stage from another, a capacitor in that location with high V loss is going to pass DC onto the next stage and this is the reason why transistors end up blown .... Which is why it's also important to check out the components around the blown transistor because the reason why it blew will be somewhere in its path....
But anyway, thanks again for your reply.....
@@RetroRepairGuy tried to find a datasheet for the amp IC and came up with nothing!.... I think that I'm going to look for the service manual for the Panasonic boombox and go from there....
@@PeterMilanovski I heard a few high-fi sound engineers say they would rather if capacitors had zero ESR. And yes the V loss is important. Either way, after thirty years it's just to show that they are way passed their service life. Many don't realize that in turn they can damage other components.
@@PeterMilanovski Yeah I looked quickly and was unable to find anything either.
My brand new old stock Sanyo C15 has a sloooooooooow cassette play. Could it be because it’s never been used until I tried? Offer repairs? I’ll pay. It’s a brand new unit. Actually, I’m working on a video for my channel.
Hi! While it could be the motor, I would expect it to be the belts. Even when not used, rubber melts or loses elasticity so my guess is that I would start with that. Also a good cleaning and greasing of the gears, even and especially since it's never been used. Even show cars need to be turned on and taken around the block once in a while and get their oil changed. Unfortunately, another plague of older equipment is capacitors that could leak and cause damage as they have a certain life span as well as shelf life. Unfortunately the TH-cam show takes up most of the time since I'm repairing stuff for the show that I then put on sale on the website. That's great for the channel and good luck! TH-cam in my experience is just about putting in the effort. Unfortunately there are many non paying hours to put in first. Thanks for watching!
My latest video is out th-cam.com/video/Woo1-DSzc5A/w-d-xo.html I restored an old drum machine that was extremely dirty. It's a Yamaha RX5 which is the same model used by many groups in the 80s including a-ha, Prince, Madonna and Vangelis. Hope you enjoy! I worked really hard on it.
th-cam.com/video/np6PnVWEkj0/w-d-xo.html
was that from a thrift store ? i saw $9.99 was with french writing ? are you living in canada ?
Hi Clive! Yes if you watch some of my other videos you'll see it's no secret that I both live in Canada and that I spend too much time at the thrift store according to Mrs. RRG! 😊 I happened to pick that one up for $9.99 Canadian dollars! I repair old stuff that I have, some donations, some thrift store finds and garage sales. Thanks for watching and please check out some of the newer videos as well if you haven't yet!
HELLO. I HAVE A " Telefunken CC-9000 " IT DOESN'T GET ANY RADIO STATIONS . SIGNAL IS VERY WEAK. . ANY IDEAS OF WHAT IT COULD BE ? OR WHERE TO LOOK ?
Hi there! If the rest of the radio is working fine I would say the most common things are the antenna and wires connecting to it. Also a bad ground wire in the radio could cause similar issues. In this video, the radio I fixed has an IC for the AM/FM. If you have something similar it would have to be diagnosed. Could be the IC is faulty or simply not getting the correct voltage. Very difficult without having the unit in front of me but I would say to start by checking the two first things, antenna and grounds. Remember ground and connection problems could also be due to cold or cracked soldering on the board which can happen after so many years. Example again was this radio at 6:54 in the video you see I was just moving the board and the sound fluctuated because of the cable and it had never been opened before and there was a lot of cracked solder joints.
@@RetroRepairGuy WELL . CASSETTE AND THE AUX INPUT WORKS GREAT.. ITS JUST THE RADIO THE ONE MESSED UP. . WHEN I OPENNED TO CLEAN THE INSIDE. I DID CHECK FOR BAD SOLDERINGS ALL OVER THE BOARD. COULDN'T FIND ANY BAD SOLDERINGS .. ANTENNAS WIRES ARE FINE. BUT WHEN ADDED AN EXTERNAL ANTENNA WITH A SIGNAL BOOSTER THE BOOMBOX WORKED OK . NOT AS GOOD AS THE OTHERS BOOMBOXES I HAVE.
I have the top-of-the-line of that model is the RX dt680 I got it new in 1991 unfortunately the one you have was the bottom of the line which is probably why you notice the build quality wasn't as good
Hi there! Thank you I had no idea they had a line for the RX series nor that this one was at the bottom; explains a lot, thank you for the information!
@@RetroRepairGuy yeah if you look up the RX dt680 they look similar except the the rx dt 680 was a high-end model which both are part of the Platinum Collection series
@@izzyyanuzzi954 I see that they replaced the equalizer with a second tape deck. Did you get to open it up enough to see the tape mechanisms and if the boards are made differently? Because on the boards I saw writing and holes for more components which often means they use the same boards. Although it's possible my boards were just lemons.
@@RetroRepairGuy no there two different machines all together and the amplifier must be different because there's hardly any distortion on the dt680
@@izzyyanuzzi954 hello, I have at least 6 models (including CS780), from this Platinum collection, and models like CT980, CT990, DT680, CS780 sound the same. So I assume that there is something wrong with the actual example of CS780 that you have.. There are no any distortion nor in DT680 or CS780..
the old Yamaha mx-70 also has an incredibly thin pcb card and kobedr tracks that come off incredibly easily! nothing better than a cheap fisher amp in this area, NOT an easy amp to work on. the design and the way it is put together is poorly thought out
Yeah I struggled with this one. Fix one thing, another breaks.