Victoria CPR-5000B

The CPR5000 was manufactured in Hong Kong for Topp Electronics. It's very rare, but there were other versions of it from Citizen and Juliette. It's very nice to look at, with big chrome dustcaps and chrome rings around the speakers. It is powered by two TBA810P amplifier chips from SGS-Thomson. Surprisingly, it takes 10 batteries instead of the usual 8.

The brushed aluminum trim on the sides is very nice, it reminds me of a Sanyo M9994. On the tuner dial is a very cool-looking frequency graph (yes I know it's meaningless), and a "crosshair" style tuner needle. The VU meter is very odd, because there is no gap between the left and right channels. Just a total of 10 LED's, 5 left and 5 right, with no space between them. And they start from the center and move outward.

Inside, the quality is better than I expected. All the screw posts have threaded metal inserts for durability. The 6-inch woofers, made by "Great" of Taiwan, feature corrugated cones with rolled cloth surrounds and big chrome caps. The 2-inch tweeters are real cone units, not cheap piezos. It also has adjustable tape door damping. That's right, there is a screw inside the battery compartment that allows you to adjust how fast the tape door opens. The only thing I don't like is the control knobs, they're too short and too close together.