Boom Box - History

History

The first Boombox was developed by the inventor of the C-Cassette, Philips of the Netherlands. Their first 'Radiorecorder' was released in 1969. The Philips innovation was the first time that radio broadcasts could be recorded onto C-Cassette tapes without cables or microphones that previous stand-alone cassette tape recorders needed. Early sound quality of tape recordings was poor but as the C-Cassette technology evolved, with stereo recording, Chromium tapes and noise reduction, soon HiFi quality devices become possible. Several European electronics brands such as Grundig also introduced similar devices.

Boomboxes were soon also developed in Japan in the early 1970s and became popular there due to their relatively compact size matched with impressive sound quality. The Japanese brands soon took over major parts of the European Boombox market and were often the first Japanese consumer electronics brand that a European household might purchase. The Japanese innovated with sizes, form factors and technlogy, introducing such advances as stereo Boomboxes, removable speakers, in-built TV receivers and later inbuilt CD players.

The boombox was introduced to the American market during the mid-1970s, with the bulk of production being carried out by Panasonic, Sony, Marantz, and General Electric. They were immediately noticed by the urban adolescent community and exploded onto the streets of America’s metropolitan centers such as New York, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. The early models were an attractive hybrid which fused the booming sound of large in-home stereo systems and the portability of small portable cassette players – they were typically small, black, heavy, and most importantly very loud. The effective AM/FM tuner, standard in all early boomboxes, was the most attractive feature of the early boombox – up until the incorporation of input and output jacks into the boxes, allowing for the coupling of devices such as microphones and turntables. This development brought boombox to their height of popularity, and as their popularity rose so did the innovative features included in the box. Urban adolescents loved boomboxes for their portability and sound quality, but most important to the youth market was the bass. The desire for louder and heavier bass led to bigger and heavier boxes; by the 1980s some boomboxes had reached the size of a suitcase. Most boomboxes were battery-operated, usually requiring “D” size batteries – sometimes up to 10 or more per box – leading to extremely heavy, bulky boxes flooding the streets. Regardless, the boxes kept growing in size to accommodate the bass output and newer boombox models were affixed with heavy metal casings to handle to vibrations from the bass.