My first thought is "You can't change one tape while the other is playing for continuous playback."

You know you're getting old when Mat features your old boombox in a retro-tech video. Yes, I had one of those.

I like how it tells you how to open the door if it gets stuck, inside the door!

I had a version of this for a while as a teenager. A friend is a computer programmer, and we used it for copying the games he had written (before he went professional). It was a very competent machine for direct dubbing, probably due to the shared mechanism, and the output was much more reliable for this specific purpose than the other BPC with more traditional twin cassettes we’d also tried to use for the same purpose.

I love how pre-internet, companies produced those beautiful catalog/brochures.

The outside and the locker really make this video feel special!

I owned a JVC PC-W300 and this box was what I would almost call “high end”. This machine was right between a boombox and a stationary hi-fi system. Dual Auto-Reverse, Aux IN, Record OUT and Phono IN. Detachable speakers and handle. I stored/forgot it in my parents' basement and the water pipe developed a leak and the Mighty JVC sank. It was sad. The day we threw him into the recycling plant, I paused for a moment, looked at him and said, “Goodbye, old friend.”

One benefit might be that the dubbing introduces no or little additional wow and flutter, as the two cassettes are driven by the same mechanism

Well done, Mat. Enjoyed the change of scenery and the funny bits.

I like the on location work. It has shades of James Burke and Connections. Nice.

Mat with his cap on backwards and a boom box on his shoulder.....that's an image that's both hard to forget and difficult to comprehend. 😮 😂

Wow -- I have never in my life seen one of these. Fascinating!

Walks off listening to the back of the boombox!

I had one of these back in the early 2000s when I was a teenager, got it for a few bucks at a flea market. The "X-Bass" port on the front is actually the mouth of a folded transmission line (a spiral-formed tunnel that is integrated into the base of the unit, which horn-loads the 3-Inch woofer driver that you showed on the backside of the unit to give it more sensitivity for bass frequencies - similar to what e.g. Bose is doing in their WaveRadio systems). I remember it had a decent amount of bass for what it was, but the Twin Tape mechanism was awful. On my unit, it broke almost instantly and only one of the two slots remained operational until it eventually broke completely. It didn't bother me too much though because I had a discman from Panasonic connected to the RCA-Line-In almost all the time and used it as an active portable speaker system for listening to CDs when I was out and about in the park with friends. Wild times back then...

5:50 personally i think 3 knobs for EQ is perfect for 98% of consumers. I am very happy to just be able to tweak bass/mid/trebble. It's absolutely adequate.

Even if I would have been okay with the compromise that you have to eject both tapes at the same time, having the wind/rewind functions only on the RECORDING deck would have been enough to return it to the store the same day. If they would have been only on the PLAYBACK deck, I might have dealt with it but putting the functions on the RECORDING deck only is just plain dumb. Thanks for posting, Mat! I didn't even know these double decks existed.

8:24 The "cardboard stand", or indeed anything on display that lists the features, is called a Silent Salesman. It's one of those lovely old-fashioned terms that remains in use today.

I love that Matt and I have the same musical tastes. And no one would suspect either of us. Also that Osmo tracking was very smooth.

My minds still boggled by you being a big Hip Hop fan! NO SLEEP 'TIL BRIXTON!!!

Are both decks sharing the same motor\capstain? Cause if they do, this device should be the Ultimate Dubbing Machine. Given how any wow and flutter introduced in playback should be nearly perfectly canceled out during recording. NGL, kinda bummed out this test wasn’t included. Otherwise, great video as usual. Thanks for sharing!

As always never mix your batteries up….😂😂

Wow I literally had that model!! I believe it was a 9th Christmas/Birthday present. I used to stay up late and tape House / Techno off Radio 1 in 91

My parents used to own Sharp WF-T379 (with the similar twin deck mechanism) in late 80s. I was 6 around that time. I'm still amazed at the fact that I learned how to record sound/radio broadcast and dubbing/mix taping on my own with that boombox. I doubt my parents even know how to use it other than playing pre-recorded tapes and listening to FM radio.

Love the camera work and different scenery in this one, also like the more mundane subject matter, great video Mat!

_Techmoan on location !!_ see online for the tour dates !!

The hours i would spend leafing through catalogues as a kid and researching things, was that argoose by chance.

My dad had the model dispayed at 8:24. He got it as a wedding present in 1992. It was in use around the house till 2015 and got me hooked on classical music before we got a Panasonic 5 CD changer stereo system as a long overdue upgrade😅. Good times. This is my first comment on your channel

I'm old enough to have owned one of the original boom boxes, and now I can't lift the bloody thing.

Wish I could do a second thumbs up for that ending, I love your creativity

in my country in the 80s and 90s we called the two casette boombox a "dachshund"

Seeing that Hitachi model in the Argos catalogue with the big "3D Bass" print on the front (8:05 first page, bottom left) took me back to my teenage years as I lusted after it. No idea if it was any good but at least it had two separate cassette compartments!

What's crazy is that even this low spec boombox is still more feature packed than the portable decks that came out later in the 2000s. Do they even drink Moxie in the UK? Where the hell did he get that hat? Has to be one of the most obsure and oldest soda pops in Britain.

Fisher PH-W704 is my current favorite in my collection. Something nice about being able to see and control each deck independently.

I remember seeing people walking along the street supporting those monstrous boxes on their shoulder, probably all deaf in one ear now.

I can't pin point it but maybe my favorite video you've done. What you showed and how you showed it. Excellence!!!

I have one of these still ! its somewhere in the loft. Used it for years playing Rush tapes in my workshop. never missed a beat. Then used to play my Sony Atrac CD player through it. Still sounded great in the workshop with every thing turned up.. Radio was very clear , can't comment on the battery life as I only used it with the mains. Dubbing worked ok as I backed up my tapes onto chrome cassettes for the car.😁

i would love to have seen someones reaction if they'd come across you with your cap backwards, rockin a boom box with old skool hip hop blaring out.

I was hoping you'd do a video on the back 2 back system at some point. I remember them from back in the day but I really wanted the Hitachi 3D80 as it looked so cool with the x4 speakers across the front and the 'table top' layout of the decks and controls across the top. I actually picked up a back2back from a car boot sale a few years ago, still in its box. It works well and although has limits when compared to separate decks, it obviously had a lot of design work put into it. I wonder, would you be able to do a 'how it works' follow up video Matt?

That is a fairly weird design. It really enhances your videos with the changes of location vs. a talking head at your workbench or voice-overs. Mat keepin it trill! ✊

"I just knocked on this guys door - 50-something year old - told me I'd interrupted him preparing a Hip Hop mixtape for his friends. 1.36 million of them." Great stuff Mat, more Boomboxes and retro HiFi please!

'Graphic equaliser' 😂 in the 70's they'd probably be bass, tone and treble rotary controls. Oooh let's put them on sliders and call it a 'graphic equaliser' 😂 Also when you've got just three sliders for your 'graphic equaliser' they often seemed to put the very same sliders next to them for Volume and balance, just to make it look like a five band equaliser 😂😂😂

Hahaaa! PC-V77, I never expected to see that one on this channel! Had it in my room thru my childhood!

One of these was my daily driver as a teenager and it did a good enough job, it was loud enough to annoy everyone and it didn't break. They changed the look of the machine each year to match the latest trend but I expect they were always the same inside.

HOLY SHIT, we had that Sharp one that you showed first! Our car's radio was royally screwed up for a short time, and I would hold the boom box across my legs as we drove around, listening to our tapes. I remember the handle and how heavy it was (I was on the small side, even for my age, so I had to stabilize it with both of my lil hands), so clearly, and watching the tape spin. It was the late 90s. so it wasn't the cutting edge anymore. I can't remember where we got it, we might have borrowed it from my uncle, who loved his music. I'm happy to see it again, it made a really big impact on what I thought technology should look like.

Absolutely fantastic video. You did an awesome job showing off the compromises here in an entertaining way!

Love the "Moxie" hat! That's my favorite soda! I didn't realize it made much reach outside the northeast US.

So crazy how everything changed with digital media, lithium batteries, Digital amps and dsp

I miss the time when everyone had a boombox.

When mix tapes were king ❤

Every so often you remind me that I didn’t get the internet until 2001. This really is ‘Argos as a search engine’ stuff. Great video as always

Thank you, another great video . I've been watching some of your older videos as I'm stuck inside with covid and realized I miss the puppets at the end of some of the older videos, I think you should bring them back

Haha, I quite enjoyed this one! Good to see you out and about.

I wonder how that mechanism was cheaper than 2 "simple" ones with all the added complexity.

Sharp’s obsession with twin media playback gets better - They also released a mini system and a boombox with twin CD playback. The trays were side-by-side, and the entire disc transport assembly, laser, spindle motor, and all, slid from left to right underneath whichever CD was selected.

WOW!! I used to have one of them!! Loved it at the time!

Great video, love the outdoor setting. Was hoping the ending would resolve into a crane shot pulling up and back to show an enormous on-location crew with Mat's trailer, catering, lots of PAs and boombox wranglers.

Watching from New England in the US, I never expected to see someone in the UK wearing a Moxie hat. Rad.

Nice scenery!! As I remember my friends and my family loved the SHARP brand as it was cheaper than SONY but had lots of features to play with. We as kids managed to get by with whatever was working, we made our own "radio shows" on tape. For that we used SHARP double deckers. Fun times!

I love all the extra context you give for the time these products came out, it certainly helps paint a proper picture. And great work on the outdoor shots and great framing!

I had the Sharp WQ-T238X, another back to back, when I was a kid. I emptied my children’s bank account to get it and made miss takes for every girl I fancied. I used my Walkman for the ff and rw. Didn’t really pay me back.

Mat definitely showed his Moxie in this video.

As a proud Mainer that Moxie hat makes me very happy!

It never fails to delight me that he's such a huge vintage hip hop enthusiast

I was wondering if you'd ever get around to this model. My brother had one of these (his was blue rather than black) and I thought it was the neatest piece of technology on the planet back then. Sounded darn good to me back then

We never called them mix tapes back in the 80s, not in Ireland or Britain anyway. We just called them tapes. Mostly I made them for myself, some I made for friends and a lot were made to show girls how cool/hip/sensitive I was. That rarely worked.

Great vid and interesting.Thanks !

I bought the single tape deck ITT 120 Touring radio cassette. It had the 'wide stereo' function that was quite good for the time. It took away some base of course but I used it for some of my 12" single recordings such as Yes' Owner of a lonely heart. This was 1983. Happy days. Great video again, Matt.

Hi Mat! Again, I LOVE how you can bring me back to that time when we were browsing the shops, bringing back that feeling. It is so recognisable and I would like to hop in the car and go browsing those shops again... My kids tell me there are no such shops anymore... (Love the outdoor videos😊)

I bought one from the thrift store for AU$7 and only found out that it is a double deck when I got it home! I made a video about it and will be uploaded in the near future

I had one of these and I bloody loved it at the time.

Opening That's a little too big How much does a thing weigh That's Three times taller than my Unit

maintenance must also be a nightmare with that mechanism.

Love the format of this video. The effort was worth it!

What sweet memories this Sharp boom box brought! I used to own one and I was carrying it with me on school excursions blasting heavy metal to my poor unsuspicious classmates. Actually it is still alive, only needs a good cleaning and some slight maintenance

Companies solving problems that weren't problems to begin with.

"You put cassette 1 in Tape 1and cassette 2 in tape 2................." Younger Generation - "You've lost me..........." :)

Love the on-location segments and different camera angles.

Watching one of these is like watching an old-fashioned PBS or BBC documentary, the kind that puts more value into explanation and information rather than flashy whiz graphics or sensationalized narration. It's a style underappreciated both then and now, but it's the style I'll choose every single time, because I can actually learn something from a video like this.

What a beautiful landscape.

Thanks for sharing.

Hooray!! New video from Techmoan🎉

Great show Mat! Great to see some on location shots!

To echo others, it was nice to see you out and about! Great job, as always. Thank you.

I remember these Sharp players well and was advised at the time in Dixons that they were compromised and brought a Hitachi TRK-3D95E instead with twin decks. Plus it had a RDS digital tuner and that sealed the deal. Much pocket money went on that system. Used it everywhere. Took to scouts and youth club. Was hammered as it had the two microphones 🎤 inputs and was used as PA and for party’s. Sadly it was a total loss when it got wet in a building and was still plugged in the mains at the time. So was fried. Think I brought it in 1990/91 around that time.

I had the Sharp WQ-T384 'back to back' as a kid and it was a vastly superior unit to this one. Underneath the door it had a horizontal row of electronic buttons facing upwards. Sharp called it "full logic control". Not only did you have complete control over each deck, but it also had AMSS... auto music search system. Whilst a tape is playing, you could press FF or RW and it would then scan to the next or previous blank gap between songs and then automatically start playing from that point. It was a dream for skipping those less liked tracks on an album. And because it was full electronic controls, dubbing games or music albums from friends was a magical single button affair, without any of the mechanical sequence as Matt showed on the conventional side by side deck. It even automatically dealt with tapes of different lengths. The final bonus for me was that as both auto reverse decks could keep playing in a loop, I could have 3 hours worth of music continuously playing whilst revising. Personally, I loved this version and it was my well loved music machine from around 14 to 18, when it was then replaced by a Technics 4 box midi system.

I love this style of video! The outside views, the camera follows. The change of scenery! Please continue like this

Love the beautiful scenery!

Really liked the editing and the new locations on this one. Was just a nice new thing

Great video thank you

I've loved your videos for a good while now, but i've got to say, you've really upped the production quality! i really enjoyed the different scenes and cuts. although having said that i could watch your videos regardless of editing etc. hehe. thanks for another great one!

I have a Sharp Stereo with this twin deck, It has an auto CD to TAPE dubbing feature, It automatically fits a CD album onto a tape and shuffles the tracks to make sure they fit. As far as Tape to Tape dubbing, it can be used to make mixtapes, as its single set of softtouch controls can select and control both decks. Although it's not a boombox, it's a home stereo.

Wowsers. We had one of these. I loved it.

Great video, and I REALLY like the change up in the scenery!

Your love of hip-hop music never fails to please and impress me. Cheers!

Appreciate the dynamic shooting of this one.

I remember a strange boombox I used to have. It had twin tape decks, one deck was your standard playback deck, the other deck could only record, there wasn't even a pause button on either deck. It was really bottom of the line and so was the quality of the recordings it made. That said though it would still have been easier to make a mix-tape on it, not that you'd want to. I think actually it's in one of my really old videos.

Fantastic!

I like the outdoors setting. Gives it some Tim Hunkin vibes.

Love the change of scenery in the video.

I've been subscribed for many years but it still makes me laugh when I see your old skool hip hop tapes, sometimes just in the background. Never judge a book by its cover 👍🏼