Curtis Mathes JX-500

Curtis Mathes was an old American TV manufacturer. Boomboxes were not their forte. So, not surprisingly, they outsourced them to someone else: Goldstar. Yes, this boombox was made in Korea by Goldstar in 1983. In fact it's a duplicate of the Goldstar TSR-900. It is 21-3/8 inches wide, and weighs 13.2 lbs without batteries. It has an AM/FM tuner with AFC and Muting, a soft-touch cassette deck with CrO2 and Metal settings, and RCA jacks for Line In and Line Out. The speakers are 2-way units with 4.5" paper cone woofers and 1.5" paper cone tweeters. The third speaker hole is fake, it's covered with black felt. Powering the speakers is a single Hitachi HA1392 amplifier chip, which in a 12 volt, 3.2 ohm boombox like this would deliver approximately 5 watts per channel.

It certainly is attractive, with its brushed aluminum tape door trim and its chrome speaker trim. The tweeter trim is particularly nice, because it can be removed via screws for cleaning. To disassemble this boombox, remove the 7 screws in back, including the one inside the battery compartment and the one that sits to the left of the Line In/Out jacks. You don't need to eject the tape door or remove any of the control knobs.