AIWA CS600 VINTAGE GHETTO BLASTER


This is not a true evaluation, plus the product was not intended to produce light, so my standard review format will not be used here.
This web page was opened on 04-03-08, and was last updated 05-14-08.



Although this is not an LED product, I've published reviews & informational web pages for other non-LED, non-laser, and non-light products on this website. So adding a section to this website about vintage ghetto blasters was pretty much inevitable. However I did perform a spectrographic analysis of its "DSL-activated" LED, so this is at least slightly germane to the general theme of this website.

*** VERY IMPORTANT!!! ***
These web pages are about machines I actually *HAVE* at this very moment (early-April 2008), not machines I once had but no longer do (those which were broken, sold, or lost over the years; like my beloved Sharp GF-4545 - R.I.P. (Rest In Pieces), a large Lasonic, a Marantz Gold Series, a Sony or two, a GE or two, and several other JVC models).

I remember purchasing this ghetto blaster in I believe 1983, and have strong memories of playing the Red Rider album "As Far as Siam" in it; I also operated a crude laser show for the cover band "Chrome Forest" in Juneau AK. USA by connecting the scanners (the major component was the azimuth adjustment assembly from a Pioneer laser disk drive from the same era) to its speaker outputs, connecting something from the band's equipment to the Line In jacks, and setting it up in PJ's Game Room in the Mendenhall Valley just north of Juneau.

The Aiwa CS600 boasted a whole bunch of features rivalling expensive home stereos at the time...let's do a little recap from memory here:
I also own the following JVC (and a Panasonic and a Sears) ghetto blasters; they may or may not be added to this website in the future: The RC-550 from 1982 is a large monaural machine boasting a 3-way speaker system with a 10" woofer.
The RC-656 from ~1983 is a rather plain, midsized ghetto blaster ("plain", as boomboxes from this time period go)
The RC-838 is a large machine from 1978; it boasts the "biphonic system" which has binaural ("stereo wide") sound.
The RC-M70 was the largest and most powerful machine sold in 1982.
The RC-M80 is a large machine from 1982; it's selling points are a soft-touch cassette transport and a digital tuner.
The Aiwa CS600 has a very nice sound; it has a bass boost circuit like many of the JVC units above.
The Sears SR-2100 is a mid-sized machine with rather nice sound and a bass boost circuit.



How this machine would often be carried.
This photograph was taken on the afternoon of 04-01-08.
The Metallica "Ride the Lightning" shirt was used for a number of these photographs because they were taken on the same day.



The back of the machine, showing the I/O receptacles.


Spectrographic plot
Spectrographic analysis of the amber "DSL" (Dynamic Super Loudness) LED in this machine.




Here's a closing shot of this ghetto blaster. :-)


UPDATE: 05-14-08
I'll be moving again sometime in June 2008, and the new place will have no storage.
Rather than letting this wonderful pre-loved machine end up in the dustbin (garbage can), I made a post on the Stereo2Go fora, offering it free for pickup along with most other ghetto blasters on this website. Therefore, that dreadful "" icon will now appear next to its listings on this website.


An excellent place to go find out & learn about vintage ghetto blasters is the Boombox Museum.









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