In around 1984, a friend got a huge double cassette boom box for Christmas. It was imposing to look at but didn't quite have the output to match. I discovered that this beast used 8 D-Cells, so i convinced my friend to beg his mom for the money and he bought one of these things. I wired it into his beloved Christmas gift (behind mom's back, of course) and he suddenly had the LOUDEST boom box in our school! 😂 In a short amount of time, he blew the OEM speakers, and so then we had to go to a local auto salvage yard to find some better speakers that would fit the holes. We succeeded in doing that, and then the thing was even louder. The only problem was that the internal power supply couldn't deliver enough current to run the booster, so it could only be switched on when using batteries, and then it sucked the D-Cells dry in about 45 minutes. You might be able to listen to ONE tape before you needed new batteries. Kids - what more can I say.
That brings back some memories! I had the 40w/5 band paired with a Realistic deck and rockin a pair of Pioneer 6×9s in my 68 Mustang. Sounded great at the time. Man those were the days!
Yeah, I bridged a Radio Shack 120W car amp with a computer power supply to power 2 12" sub woofers in a cheap box I built. Who knows what it puts out since it's only using 12v.. But it actually sounds better than a Klipsh 120sw. Nothing as loud, but certainly a much better freq. response. 25 years later, it's still sitting under my desk right now.
I used to use one of these little amplifiers, a sony Discman and a set of 3 way house speakers to provide background music in parks for weddings and events. I would take the battery out of my car and always had enough power left to start the car again after a 4 hour function. I was a mobile outdoor DJ before such a thing was really heard of. And I always had plenty of volume and was often asked to turn it down.
I remember these gadgets. The more ubiquitous model was the one with stereo sliding equalizer (five bands or so per channel) that looked so cool. Over here in europe there was not the brand Realistic, but other knock-offs like Kinderr, Poineer etc.
This takes me back - in the 80's I had a 'Exploder' power amp in my car ... can't remember where I got it from - it may have been rescued from the scrapyard as I certainly didn't buy it new ! Still got it somewhere too ... .. .
5:20 hahaha, great! 😂 And "I am quit capable of screwing things up": briliant! I am not the only one feeling this way 😉 Also the aluminium pronunciation 😂 Love it. (Shame the Feeeeeltech was not mentioned 😉)
I can remember a Craig Powerplay booster in the mid seventies. I had it installed into my 1972 Chevy Monte Carlo. It picked my pioneer 8 track/AM FM stereo up a few more watts. After the system was stolen, I replaced it with a high power AM FM Cassette from Radio Shack.
WAGO connectors are a godsend. If you find a good shop with a WAGO demo display, they often have free 'evaluation' samples if you ask nicely:) I've bought non wago versions too but they have a tendancy to snap shut on your finger in a painful fashion.
theese are a much more sensible type of amplifier for car audio, just to boost the output of whatever stereo was installed, dad had one of theese boosters in his car (maybe not the same model as this one though) . Of course that was back before modern bass heavy music existed and before modern people existed and before everybody thought they needed a big ass subwoofer and 5000+ watts to ensure that everybody in the area hears it.
I took a clone of this, and put it in mu PC case, powered off the 12V rail, to provide higher power than the Sound Blaster itself could provide. Had to bypass the power switch, and add in extra filter capacitors, and extra power supply inductors to get the noise down off the 12V supply to an acceptable level.
I had one but i was using it in my bedroom as a headphone amp with the outputs run in to a resistor divider lol That thing was pointless a lot of radios already put out that power lol
I had a Goodmans variant of this with a graphic equalizer, which was quite good. Not only did it look cool but you could tweak crappy tapes and crappy speakers to sound sort of ok.
Since it was (is?) common to measure the frequency response to the -3dB low and high point (perhaps only with speakers?), I would consider this to be a 20Hz-20kHz product (technically 7Hz-34kHz) and have to wonder if RShack was under-reporting the response in order to up-feature their higher-priced options. This should do the full audio range even with sloppy manufacturing tolerances.
Still could be made into a bench amp or unbridge it for a HPhone amp? I couldn't quite see, but it looks as though there's a cap across the input, if so, remove/lower it for a better HF? All the best, John.
@@graymcd that's not as effective as the old Mike Botando move. He leaned out his van window once holding a two foot long bong, let out a hit and asked a girl if she wanted to go out with him. I think he ended up marrying her. When you find that keeper you have to seal the deal.
In around 1984, a friend got a huge double cassette boom box for Christmas. It was imposing to look at but didn't quite have the output to match. I discovered that this beast used 8 D-Cells, so i convinced my friend to beg his mom for the money and he bought one of these things. I wired it into his beloved Christmas gift (behind mom's back, of course) and he suddenly had the LOUDEST boom box in our school! 😂 In a short amount of time, he blew the OEM speakers, and so then we had to go to a local auto salvage yard to find some better speakers that would fit the holes. We succeeded in doing that, and then the thing was even louder. The only problem was that the internal power supply couldn't deliver enough current to run the booster, so it could only be switched on when using batteries, and then it sucked the D-Cells dry in about 45 minutes. You might be able to listen to ONE tape before you needed new batteries. Kids - what more can I say.
So you were friends with Radio Raheem?
I did the same with my GE Block Buster but wired to the transformer. Hit the switch and smoked it. Life of a 13 year old kid.
That brings back some memories!
I had the 40w/5 band paired with a Realistic deck and rockin a pair of Pioneer 6×9s in my 68 Mustang. Sounded great at the time. Man those were the days!
I can image having that '68 Stang!
Yeah, I bridged a Radio Shack 120W car amp with a computer power supply to power 2 12" sub woofers in a cheap box I built. Who knows what it puts out since it's only using 12v.. But it actually sounds better than a Klipsh 120sw. Nothing as loud, but certainly a much better freq. response.
25 years later, it's still sitting under my desk right now.
A blast from the past! I pretty much forgot about these.
What a nice surprise as it performed very well ! and your pronunciation switch sounded good on you :)
I used to use one of these little amplifiers, a sony Discman and a set of 3 way house speakers to provide background music in parks for weddings and events. I would take the battery out of my car and always had enough power left to start the car again after a 4 hour function.
I was a mobile outdoor DJ before such a thing was really heard of.
And I always had plenty of volume and was often asked to turn it down.
That's a pretty cool use for one of these!
I remember them when there was a Radio Shack in a town near me. A great look at some history.
I remember these gadgets. The more ubiquitous model was the one with stereo sliding equalizer (five bands or so per channel) that looked so cool.
Over here in europe there was not the brand Realistic, but other knock-offs like Kinderr, Poineer etc.
This takes me back - in the 80's I had a 'Exploder' power amp in my car ... can't remember where I got it from - it may have been rescued from the scrapyard as I certainly didn't buy it new !
Still got it somewhere too ... .. .
5:20 hahaha, great! 😂 And "I am quit capable of screwing things up": briliant! I am not the only one feeling this way 😉 Also the aluminium pronunciation 😂 Love it. (Shame the Feeeeeltech was not mentioned 😉)
I can remember a Craig Powerplay booster in the mid seventies. I had it installed into my 1972 Chevy Monte Carlo. It picked my pioneer 8 track/AM FM stereo up a few more watts.
After the system was stolen, I replaced it with a high power AM FM Cassette from Radio Shack.
WAGO connectors are a godsend. If you find a good shop with a WAGO demo display, they often have free 'evaluation' samples if you ask nicely:) I've bought non wago versions too but they have a tendancy to snap shut on your finger in a painful fashion.
theese are a much more sensible type of amplifier for car audio, just to boost the output of whatever stereo was installed, dad had one of theese boosters in his car (maybe not the same model as this one though) . Of course that was back before modern bass heavy music existed and before modern people existed and before everybody thought they needed a big ass subwoofer and 5000+ watts to ensure that everybody in the area hears it.
thanks for doing this.
I took a clone of this, and put it in mu PC case, powered off the 12V rail, to provide higher power than the Sound Blaster itself could provide. Had to bypass the power switch, and add in extra filter capacitors, and extra power supply inductors to get the noise down off the 12V supply to an acceptable level.
I had one of those in my Datsun pickup!
A $20 amplifier from Radio Shack with frequency response from 100 to 10K Hz! It doesn't get any better than that!
Finally, something that outperforms its specs.!
@@JohnAudioTech Clearly it was lunchtime for whoever wrote that pamphlet. Just put any numbers in there.
I had one but i was using it in my bedroom as a headphone amp with the outputs run in to a resistor divider lol
That thing was pointless a lot of radios already put out that power lol
I had a Goodmans variant of this with a graphic equalizer, which was quite good. Not only did it look cool but you could tweak crappy tapes and crappy speakers to sound sort of ok.
Since it was (is?) common to measure the frequency response to the -3dB low and high point (perhaps only with speakers?), I would consider this to be a 20Hz-20kHz product (technically 7Hz-34kHz) and have to wonder if RShack was under-reporting the response in order to up-feature their higher-priced options. This should do the full audio range even with sloppy manufacturing tolerances.
The music test into a speaker proved it was beyond 10kHz as the highs were obviously present 😊
I had a Realistic 3 band eq with bridged outputs in the late 90s
that little transformer thingie. looks intresting
It's a supply line filter choke. Removes any noise on the supply. As its in a car, some older cars alternators generated a bit of noise.
That's an RF choke/filter.
Tomato Tamoto...
Still could be made into a bench amp or unbridge it for a HPhone amp? I couldn't quite see, but it looks as though there's a cap across the input, if so, remove/lower it for a better HF? All the best, John.
That would blow your mullet back.
Rockin the Mullet!
Yep, as I was driving circles around the mall blasting GnR and trying to pick up girls.
@@graymcd that's not as effective as the old Mike Botando move. He leaned out his van window once holding a two foot long bong, let out a hit and asked a girl if she wanted to go out with him. I think he ended up marrying her. When you find that keeper you have to seal the deal.
Haha…thanks, it just occurred to me that you’re using the right pronunciation……but in an ‘American accent’ 😂
Would be neat to see it modified to put out a clean 25 watts per channel lol.