u/DJ_GabsJohnson

Ok so before anyone flips out, no this is not my speaker placement! These are still on the work bench. I have a few small repairs, and want to get a picture of the insides before I make a little rack and speaker stands. I just thought this was a nice way to take a picture!

Crossposted in r/vintageaudio and r/budgetaudiophile

Well once I started getting into audio and thrifting vintage gear, I promised myself I wasn't gonna be one of those guys who chased down matching stacks, and now I've broken that promise to myself. But I've done it in the most budget way possible.

Total cost: ~$100
Optimus LX5: $25, and $25 for the refoam kit
Optimus STA 2160: $10
Optimus CD 1750: $20, plus another $20ish in gas and tolls (rip)

I picked up the Optimus LX5 speakers a few months ago for 25 bucks, knowing they'd need a refoam. I like weird driver designs and wanted to sample them. I finally got around to the refoam this past weekend and buckled down and restored my first speakers. I'm a sculpture teacher, so pretty good at most manual skills, but was kinda terrified of this. Honestly it wasn't as nearly scary as I hyped it up to be in my head, though I did have a few issues with glue bonding to the poly cones when I really pushed them (see below).

I have a crummy Sony receiver I use as bench amp, but it only puts out like 30 WPC and from what I could find online, the Optimus LX5s want more than that to really open up, so I started scrolling FB market and found the receiver, an Optimus STA-2160, just a few minutes from my work for the comically low price of $10. It's a bruiser of a receiver and is rated at 100 WPC. It was sold untested, but I took the chance at $10 and it powered right up when I got it home. I have a few scratchy pots to clean up, but I'm not complaining for a $10 receiver! Also, it picks up strong FM stations easily without an antenna which is nice.

The night I picked up the receiver, the Optimus CD 1750 popped up on FB market for $20, about an hour and a half away and across state lines. I swear to god the FB market algorithm knows me too fucking well. It's scary.

Now I need another 30+ year old CD source like I need a hole in the head. I have two currently racked up in my main system (Denon DCD-610 and HHB Burn-it recorder), another two working ones in storage, and 3 or 4 more with issues in a "one day I'm gonna fix this" pile (lol). This is exclusive of several old CDJs, a CD mini system bedside for headphones and another in my classroom, a collection of boomboxes that I pull from for b-day/ housewarming gifts, and just one trusty discman. What can I say, I'm a CD guy!

But I had the day off work, so I made the trip. The other draw is that the CD1750 has a Sanyo LC7881 DAC chip in it (according to the internet), which is a vintage DAC flavor I don't have yet. From what I can gather, it's a multibit design that isn't a classic R2R ladder and also uses Pulse Width Modulation in the conversion. It also has a reputation for sounding even warmer and more analog than my beloved Burr-Brown R2Rs, and it does sound very warm and liquid, but I haven’t done a controlled A/B yet. Also, it just looks freakin awesome. I love the chunky buttons on 80s and 90s gear.

The CD 1750 is doing a weird thing where it opens and retracts with one button push, there is just enough time to remove and drop in a disc with my cat-like reflexes so it's not "broken", but I suspect something might be going on with a belt or physical switch so I'm gonna open it up and investigate. I will say the laser picks up really fast, like <1 second, so that is healthy at least.

So far this set up sounds great, and certainly better than $100 all-in has any right to sound. It imaged really, really beautifully with some incredibly dense layered female vocals. (If anyone is curious the album is Seleniko by Värttinä a Finnish folk group. It is a random thrift find that has stayed in heavy rotation and earned its keep as a torture test). Also did great with Philip Glass and orchestral music, though a little light in the lowest registers. When I put some cheesy Europop through them at volume with some heavy kick drum, I did get some chuffing and they are not my favorite speakers by a long shot for dance/electronic music. When I really tried to see if these speakers indeed would want the full 100 watts like the spec sheet claimed, I noticed a change in tone and realized one of my surrounds started peeling a bit, so a re-glue is drying. But, I don’t think they liked being pushed that loud (at least without a HPF), regardless of my amateur glue up.

This weekend I'm gonna figure out a little rack and set it up in its forever home in my studio/workshop. I'll post REW measurements on the speakers and more subjective listening impressions this weekend after my touch up glue dries. I also want to open up the receiver and CD player to see if I can determine who was making the amp internals for Radio Shack and to confirm the DAC chip/trouble shoot the CD tray, so keep an eye on the comments here if you are curious!

But I wanted to share now cuz I had a bummer of a day and the Optimaxx stack deserves some love. 

New party rig/ DJ booth/ Karaoke set up in the basement!

Found some JVC "Gigatube" speakers on Facebook Market and had to get them (models MXGB6 HXD77 from mini systems). Powered by a "1500 watt" car amp, bi-amped subs/main. Some Numark CDJs (the kind that take CDs), old Gemini mixer as the source. There's also old Felco Karaoke unit in there with inputs for 3 mics, a bunch of reverb/delay effects, and a one button vocal reducer that cancels out centered stereo content to instantly "karaokeize" any track.

Everything was thrifted or Facebook Market.
$80 for all 4 speakers
$35 for the car amp
$30 for a computer PSU for the 12 volt
$50 for the CDJs and mixer
$50 for the karaoke mixer
$40 for the wire rack

It's LOUD and fun as fuck. DJing with CDs is also really a hoot.

I scored some fancy pants STAX SR40 headphones for a song. They are a weird outdated model that takes speaker level signal and uses a step up transformer to increase the voltage. I thrifted an old mini component CD player and was gonna buy the proper adapters, but then I really wanted to listen ASAP. Dug around and found some 14-18 ga crimp and heat shrink butt splices (the kind for wiring outdoor lights and boats and stuff, not for audio) and did this. Honestly it works fine.

People roasted me for it over on the headphones sub. But these 50 year old phones sound GREAT.

Also I'm really glad I found this sub. I love building fucked up systems. Right now, I'm hunting for a Yamaha DSP-1 (weird 80s chip box that makes fakes "cathedral" and "concert hall" soundstages through signal mangling). I have 4 tiny af (like 5.5"x 3.5" x 3.5") Realistic Minimus 3.5 speakers. I want to make a near field quad set up around my bed and make my full size bed feel sound like a f'n cathedral.

Cross posted this in r/budgetaudiophile but wanted to share here too and see if anyone had experience with STAX “electret” headphones.

I picked up some old STAX SR-40 yesterday with the SRD-4 step up transformer today for $30! These are 1970s “electret” headphones where the driver membrane has a permanent charge instead of needing a bias charge applied. They were the entry level choice back then, and can potentially age poorly, but they looked really cool and well made. So, I took a chance on them at $30 because I’m just really into old weird stuff, especially exotic driver designs.

Immediately hopped on Facebook marketplace to try and find an old mini component with a CD player to make a little dedicated headphone rig and ended up with a rough and ready Sony CMT-SBT100 CD player for $25. It is… nothing special, but I kinda liked that it was CD only and minimal, no tape decks here folks, this is 2014!

It had those dopey pin connectors for home theater speakers. I really wanted to try to get it up and running asap, so I jury-rigged some “connectors” out of heat shrink butt joins. It ain’t pretty but it does the job, at least for now.

But holy shit these things sound really good! Granted these are my first open back headphones for “sit and listen”, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Honestly, I never saw the point of a pricey headphone rig when I can have speakers at home, and IEMs on the go. But now I do and I’m veryyyy happy with this little set up. It feels like such a blend of 1975 and 2005 in 2026 to have my little nightstand listening station fed by CDs.

I picked out stuff that I thought would flatter the SR-40s instead of stress them, so don’t look for objectivity. I started with Bob Dylan Live at the Gaslight 1962 It felt like I was in the room! Dylans vocals were amazing and when he went into a falsetto voice he sounded like a baby angel, which is really saying something given we are talking about Bob Dylan. Could literally hear the crowd fidget.

Then I moved onto a weird CD of German hunting music played on traditional hunting horns, which is right in the midrange electrostatics are supposed to be good at. (I used to play French horn, don’t judge). WOW, it sounded just incredible . The articulation and harmonics of the horns was so good. I could hear the reverb and decay in wherever it was recorded. Several times I got the full on spine tingles!

Abba’s “The Visitors” was next. It’s much moodier and synth heavy than their early stuff. I wanted to hear how something more produced sounded without going full electronic music. While this listening experience was far from a disappointment, it didn’t feel as “special” as the first two. It sounded really clean, but the different parts felt more layered than separated if that makes any sense. Maybe it just that I was appreciating more on the less busy recordings. But I do feel like my IEMs pick out and isolate parts better on busy/ complex passages.

I know this will become my go to set up for any intimate vocal, acoustic, or small ensemble listening. Really happy with this new way to listen to music and it has me digging for different things to listen to, which is 10 of 10 what I want from a new bit of kit rather than a one grail to rule them all approach. Now I just gotta decide if it stays bedside or goes to work with me….

I picked up some old STAX SR-40 yesterday with the SRD-4 step up transformer today for $30! These are 1970s “electret” headphones where the driver membrane has a permanent charge instead of needing a bias charge applied. They were the entry level choice back then, and can potentially age poorly, but they looked really cool and well made. So, I took a chance on them at $30 because I’m just really into old weird stuff, especially exotic driver designs.

Immediately hopped on Facebook marketplace to try and find an old mini component with a CD player to make a little dedicated headphone rig and ended up with a rough and ready Sony CMT-SBT100 CD player for $25. It is… nothing special, but I kinda liked that it was CD only and minimal, no tape decks here folks, this is 2014!

It had those dopey pin connectors for home theater speakers. I really wanted to try to get it up and running asap, so I jury-rigged some “connectors” out of heat shrink butt joins. It ain’t pretty but it does the job, at least for now.

But holy shit these things sound really good! Granted these are my first open back headphones for “sit and listen”, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Honestly, I never saw the point of a pricey headphone rig when I can have speakers at home, and IEMs on the go. But now I do and I’m veryyyy happy with this little set up. It feels like such a blend of 1975 and 2005 in 2026 to have my little nightstand listening station fed by CDs.

I picked out stuff that I thought would flatter the SR-40s instead of stress them, so don’t look for objectivity. I started with Bob Dylan Live at the Gaslight 1962 It felt like I was in the room! Dylans vocals were amazing and when he went into a falsetto voice he sounded like a baby angel, which is really saying something given we are talking about Bob Dylan.

Then I moved onto a weird CD of German hunting music played on traditional hunting horns, which is right in the midrange electrostatics are supposed to be good at. (I used to play French horn, don’t judge). WOW, it sounded just incredible . The articulation and harmonics of the horns was so good. I could hear the reverb and decay in wherever it was recorded. Several times I got the full on spine tingles!

Abba’s “The Visitors” was next. It’s much moodier and synth heavy than their early stuff. I wanted to hear how something more produced sounded without going full electronic music. While this listening experience was far from a disappointment, it didn’t feel as “special” as the first two. It sounded really clean, but the different parts felt more layered than separated if that makes any sense. Maybe it just that I was appreciating more on the less busy recordings. But I do feel like my IEMs pick out and isolate parts better on busy/ complex passages.

I know this will become my go to set up for any intimate vocal, acoustic, or small ensemble listening. Really happy with this new way to listen to music and it has me digging for different things to listen to, which is 10 of 10 what I want from a new bit of kit rather than a one grail to rule them all approach. Now I just gotta decide if it stays bedside or goes to work with me….

I probably have around 400 CDs, the vast majority of them are thrifted. My taste is all over, most of the Bob Dylan discography, tons of new wave, some classical, and enough broadway and cabaret music to make Dame Andrew Lloyd Webber blush.

The one thing I can never say no to is a dance comp/ DJ mix. I’m big into EDM (in the overarching description of dance music sense, not the 2010+ festival/brostep meaning) and I live for revisiting small rave scenes and micro labels. Lots of this stuff is totally unstreamable and only released on CD. The production is often an act of love and devotion by music nerds and it shows in the mastering and compilation. I have a few that aren’t even on discogs (planning to add one day soon). It makes me feel like a music archaeologist combined with a kandi kid. Anything ravy looking, or with words like “ultimate” or “maximum” in the title are almost instant buys for me. This is just a small portion of my collection of dance.

Anyone else into this collecting lane? Would love to swap notes.

Shout out to CD Source in Rockford IL. Was up that way for a facebook marketplace gear pick yesterday up and thought I’d pop in. Got most of these in the pic there. Incredible selection across genera, buy 3 get 1 free, amazing prices, and a killer selection of hifi gear/accessories including stuff like CD wallets and storage towers. All very well organized and browsable by crate digging (ahem Gramaphone Records in the city…) Well worth the trip from Chicago!

Does anyone here know good places for depositing rips of rare EDM? Would love to be connected w a community.

PS That “LA Hardcore” disc (middle left w the sexy rave lady) has the some of filthiest lyrics I’ve ever heard on dance tracks. It’s sooooo good. And this is coming from a 35 year old party gay who had a misguided adventure as a gabber DJ in my 20s.

Anyone else listen on a discman? I love mine and would recommend this series to anyone looking. It’s the second gen sports line Sony S2 from the early aughts. End game engineering on the skip protection and 50+ hr battery life. Not an “audiophile” DAC but still a killer listening experience. Mine is CD only but they had versions w mp3 CD and radio built in too.

I lost a pair of cheapie IEMs on a train from Chicago (home) to NYC. Rolled right into B&H photo storefront blocks from Penn Station to pick up a replacement and ended up with Kiwiears Aether. Was super worried the discman might not drive them with authority, but it sure does. I’m maybe leaving a wee bit on the table vs a dedicated amp, but it is better than iphone plus dongle, just in case anyone was wondering about aethers off a discman.

I f’n love the Aethers. I’ve noticed new material in classical and rock music I know super well, details just pop right out. Also, listening to super produced dance music (especially old school dub, jungle, and dnb) is just a fucking blast. The imaging and soundstage are insane: just wobbles, squelches, and pings from all directions 😍

Pulled apart my stack today to clean some scratchy pots on my EQ and swap in a CD player. Was not wanting to stop listening so I plugged my sports discman ($30, local) into the aux on my Bellari PA555 tube preamp (used $200, ebay). Power amp is a Crown xti1000 that I got for $100 local, plus the cost of caps for a DIY recap of the startup power. Sounds 99% as good as when the rest of the gear is racked up 😂

Not pictured are my Ohm Walsh 2 speakers, $400 local.

As an aside, I love that S2 discman so so much. Never ever skips and like 50 plus hours on 2 AA batteries. Drives my Kiwiears Aether planar IEMs superbly (maybe leaving a smidge on the table vs an amp, but not much). Dollars to donuts a discman and decent IEMs has to be the best deal in budget hifi going.

Hey all, I’m a millennial design nerd (born 1990 and an art professor) who is rediscovering the joys of physical music in my middle age. It started with picking up some CDs on a whim thrifting and discovering they sounded way better than bluetooth streaming in my 2017 Subaru. I always thought it was my speakers that sucked (I mean they aren’t great…) but the weak link was compressed streaming and really crummy bluetooth.

This set me off amassing CDs and setting up a nice home listening station. It was only a matter of time before I picked up a boombox for music on the go, and when I saw a Sony ZS-X1 at the thrift I had to have it. Listening to it was a revelation compared to portable bluetooth speakers. I’ve been collecting all sorts of CD boomboxes now for a few months and fixing them up as best as I can. It fits in with my combing thrift stores for building my CD collection. I enjoy listening to each and either resell or gift ones I don’t keep. But the ones that really speak to me are the wild designs of early 2000s Sony. They really bring me back to my childhood and just make me smile when I pop a disk in and crank it up.

I know most folks on this sub are into late 80s/ early 90s boomboxes. I think those machines are super rad, and would absolutely pick one up if I stumbled across the right one. But I also think the CD boombox era is criminally under-appreciated. Pretty much any working boombox at the thrift store for $10-20 is an incredible value proposition for a way to play some music loud without being tethered to a wall and without the frankly crummy quality of BT audio. Lots of later ones even added a line-in, so you can even crank it up with amassing a physical media collection if that’s more your speed. I also think these machines are really unnoticed as a prime example of the period in design history from when tech wanted to be noticed instead of just disappearing. Tech used to be aspirational, now it is just ubiquitous.

There was something magic in the watercoolers at Sony corporate in the early 2000s and they produced some super radical designs. I have a few of them, and hope to get the rest. I’m pretty exclusively focused on local sales and at cheap prices. But all of these boxes can be had for under $100 on eBay, inclusive of shipping even. If I don’t round out the collection thrifting this summer, I’ll probably resort to eBay. Please don’t buy them all up on me!

The more wild looking y2k units are often an especially great deal. They appealed to a youth market that rapidly “upgraded” to mp3 players. I am a case study in this. I got a Sony CFD-E70 in the early 2000s when they were released. I used it and loved it for a few years, until I started lusting after an mp3 player. By 2006-ish I had ripped all my CDs to mp3 and was doing all my listening on a 256mb mp3 player haha. The boombox sat on a shelf and I wish I still had it now!

Sony CFD-F10: This is my favorite sounding boombox I have. It’s big and feels a bit more “fragile”. It seems like it was mostly designed to be an “at home” boombox for an adult market.  It has super cool silver UFO styling and a glowing blue ring that is very y2k in an understated way. It’s never gonna replace stand-alone speakers if you are an audiophile, but the sound quality is pretty incredible for something all-in-one and portable. Kinda counterintuitive for a boombox, but it really shines at low volume. It has two 100mm full-range cones and two 20mm tweeters giving 9W total. Really making this set up shine is a big central passive radiator. Barring shelf speakers and monitors, I’ve never heard anything sound so good at background music level. Even at a dB level you can talk over easily, you can feel the air moving with this one. The passive radiator means it also doesn't chew through batteries the way bigger boomboxes do. Has a cassette deck and tuner, does mp3 CDs, no line-in. Really a slept on boombox IMO. From the very tail end of the boombox era 2009ish. 

Sony ZS-X1 / ZS-3CP / ZS-XN30: This is a rugged sports model. I have one and it’s the one I take if I am going out with a boombox. It's design practically begs to be picked up and swung about and it feels so dang solid in the hand. It sounds great, on par with or better than any other Sony two-driver-only boomboxes I’ve had the pleasure of listening to. Its rugged styling isn’t just hype. It feels hefty and solid in a way that most plastic boom boxes don't. I have def left this on the porch in a rainstorm after one too many beers with my neighbors and it survived, much to my relief. Really a quality little unit. The only quirk is it uses a “wall wart” instead of a standard AC plug, so find one with that plug, or factor in hunting one down. The 3CP adds mp3 playback and an upgraded backlit display. The XN30 version is slightly different with no rubber but is similar enough that I’m lumping it here. None of them have cassette decks. The various models seem to have been in production from around 2003-2009. 

Sony CFD-E75, CFD-E90, CFD-E95: This is the egg that hatched 1000 clones. These boxes have a very compact and cute egg shape and came in some awesome colorways. Very, very y2k especially the “PSYC” branded variants. “PSYC” was just a label Sony slapped on things to make them seem cooler as far as I can tell, and it works on me at least! The E90 added a few cosmetic upgrades like a bigger backlit screen that changes colors. E95 seems to be the number for the “PSYC” branded variants and basically the same as the E90. All of them have cassette decks. I had the E75 as a kid right around 2002 or 2003. I don’t have one currently, so I can’t really speak to the sound quality, but I’m sure it is up to snuff. Has cassette and tuner. I suspect it shares drivers and components with the ubiquitous CFD-S70, one of the last boomboxes to stop being produced. Released 2001 and faded out of production around 2005/6 it seems.

Sony ZS-SN10: Don’t know this one as well, but it has a very cute long and low dog-bone shape and clearly shares a design language with the other Sonys of the era. It is also exclusively “PSYC” branded. No cassette deck, but does have a tuner. It is one of those weird transitional pieces of technology that straddles the shift to digital music. From what I can dig up online it supports mp3, ATRAC3, ATRAC3plus and WMA files and has a line in. Introduced around 2005. I’m trying to hunt one down to complete my collection.

Sony ZS-Y3: Another late Sony CD-only model with a wild purse-like form factor. It has a vertical CD loading slot. It came in black and a white that seems even more prone to yellowing than your average mid-2000s tech. I have a non-working white (basically cream at this point) one that I picked up locally for very cheap with the naive idea of trying to get it working again. Lots of these late Sonys are way more “proprietary” and not really easy to work on. Would love to find one working! 

AFIK this is the Sony early 2000s “y2k aesthetic”/ organic blob boombox line. The CFD-S350 shares some rounded-ness but is way more restrained. The ZS-M30/M35 deserves an honorable mention as a super cool weird piece of transitional tech that played minidiscs and CDs, came in fun colors, and had loudspeakers.  But, I’ve never seen one IRL and have yet to cross into minidisc insanity, though that might be coming soon.

Concurrently with all this, Sony was making the “Xplod” line with more aggressive and masculine styling. They are also y2k design adjacent but more of the Monster Energy and Axe Body Spray than organic blob tech-optimism. These were outdoor blasters and cool in their own right.  There is more info on them online than there is on the models I shared above. They still have a cult following (and a price that reflects it) since “Xplods” and their cousins like the JVC Kaboom are still one of the best ways to blast music outside.

Also worth noting that this aesthetic was not exclusive to Sony’s boombox lines. Other products got the same treatment. The ZS-X1 look with white plastic and black rubber overmolds especially was carried across the “S2” sports line. There are cassette walkmans, discman players, minidisc walkmans, and even stand-alone radios that share this look. There are also Sony ICF clock radios/CD players that look like shrunken down versions of the E75/90/95 series but lack the oomph and battery option to call them boomboxes.

Ok if you’ve actually read all this, you are probably as into these designs as I am. If you will indulge me, I just wanted to wax poetic about my favorite little design moment on these sleek machines – the antenna! The antenna on the F10, ZS-X1, and E75/90/95 is just the freaking coolest. It recesses entirely into the plastic housing. It has 9 segments, is about 20” long and tapers from about pencil width to sub ⅛”  at the top. When it’s fully extended, there is a rotational mechanism and a 180 degree hinge so you can orient the antenna for best reception. It’s all made to incredibly precise tolerances and it is just so fucking satisfying ( and maybe even a little sexual?) to stow that thing away. And, it is topped with a little plastic UFO looking (not in a cheesy way!) disk. The disk is curved and colored to match the boombox housing, so it kinda disappears from all angles when retracted and keeps the lines super clean. It also means that these units almost always have an intact antenna since it physically can’t snag on anything when stowed.

To me this is indicative of Sony’s design philosophy during this period. Absolutely nothing was an after thought on these boomboxes. Every little physical aspect was a considered decision, and to me this is a hallmark of excellent design. They could’ve easily just slapped a standard antenna on these, or even went with no antenna since by 2004ish radio was not that important to the youth market that these were aimed at. But Sony designers chose the hard route. They were committed to futuristic design, but not throwing away the past. Post-ipod-and-iphone consumer electronics design has reduced our aesthetic attachments and physical interaction with electronics to the absolute minimum. Sony in the 2000s knew how to make people sit up, take notice, and interact with these machines with their eyes, ears, and hands. 

Long time Reddit lurker on multiple topics but this is my first time ever posting. Crossposting this in r/boomboxes and r/cdcollecting.

TL;DR– what is a fair price for a working boombox with condition notes and fresh batteries with a curated pack of 5 CDs, sold outside of music events? List of specs and notes on the boomboxes in the picture after my rambling message.

Just wanted to share my growing boombox collection and summer project! I was born in 1990 so grew up on CDs and had my own boombox in high school, but for my college-and-after-life, digital music reigned supreme. I guess I am a bit of a cliche, but I’ve rediscovered the joys of physical media and speakers designed to move air these last few months.

It started with discovering that the speakers in my 2017 Subaru don’t in fact suck. It’s just whatever bluetooth nonsense they were using that makes them sound horrible. It’s base trim so nothing fancy, but popping a disk in was a revelation. This sent me on maniacal thrifting missions for CDs, and at 1-2 bucks a pop, I was buying all sorts of new-to-me stuff (world music, dance comps, albums I knew the singles from but not the B-sides) and turned from a 20+ hours of audiobooks a week listener to a constant music junkie. Even with digital music, I’ve always been an album person and finding my faves in the thrift bins for a couple bucks is such a killer guilt free dopamine hit (matched only by the crushing disappointment of an empty jewel case of a grail list album).

I’m generally a thrift junkie, and it was a natural extension to pick up a boombox when I came across a cool one with killer y2k styling. And I was blown away by how low volume on a boombox fills a room differently than a BT speaker at a comparable volume and how at high volume, you can actually feel the air moving.

I have some music-loving friends' birthdays coming up (also millennials)  and decided to pick them up a thrifted boombox and a tightly curated 5 pack of CDs based on their musical taste. I’m really excited to gift them and had so much fun hunting down CDs I know they will love. Confident I’ll be doing boombox beach hangs and CD thrift trips with them this summer.

Fast forward a few months and now I have a 9 and growing collection of CD boomboxes. Whenever I see one at the thrift, I pick it up. I’ve gotten into light repair and am even gonna swap the CD player from one to a cosmetically better unit this weekend – wish me luck. I also have a pretty massive collection of CDs I’ve listened to and appreciated (or not), but don’t feel the need to keep.

I was thinking a fun summer project would be to sell certified testing and working boomboxes with batteries and curated CD 5-packs this summer at outdoor events/ the park/ the beach. I’ll just roll in with a wagon and a few boomboxes and some music playing. I’m in Chicago and it's a great city for outdoor music in the summer! Basically trying to sell a little party ready to go and a way for folks to get into CDs/ physical media with a low barrier to entry. I’m not buying cheap store brand boxes, trying to only pick up quality units. I have zero interest in eBay, shipping, or traditional “flipping”. I’m not trying to augment my income with this, but I am not running a charity either.

Mostly doing it for the fun of hunting down and listening to different boxes and as a way to move music through my personal collection. I am a collector and curator by nature, and half of the fun is putting together the CD packs. The CD packs are tightly themed  for example:  “90s Lesbian Angst” (Lilith Fair 2 disk comp, k d lang – Drag, Tori Amos – Under the Pink, Boys on the Side soundtrack, Shakespear’s Sister- Hormonally Yours) and Black Girl Magic (The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, TLC Crazy Sexy Cool, Alicia Keys Songs in A Minor, Mary J Blige Mary, Destiny’s Child – Survivor). I’m trying to hit a range of genres from world music to country, but those sets should give you an idea of where I am going with these sets. The idea is there will be something for anyone to kick off a CD collecting journey and walk away with a quality boombox on their shoulder blasting some music they are excited about.

So redditors of CD world and boomboxlandia, my question is thus:

What feels like a fair price for this combo of tested and working boombox with condition notes and fresh batteries and a CD 5-pack? I am thinking low-end $70 for an entry level but quality boombox up to about $120 for a quality 8w+ box in great condition. Maybe more if I score a JVC Kaboom or some such at the thrift store and want to pass it on instead of keep it (unlikely on both counts haha). So far I’ve been avoiding “no-name” brands like Emerson or Magnavox, but would $40-50 for a basic but functional unit (with batts and CDs too) make sense to folks? $40 means I’m netting only like $10-$15 dollars on cheap ones, which is fine with me, but I don’t want to stockpile boxes that won’t sell and I’m not jazzed about having in my personal collection.

I am especially interested in feedback from Gen-Z and Gen Alpha redditors. I am a college art professor and when I switched from playing music from a computer to a boombox w CD’s students were really into it and asking me where I got it. Does ~$100 +/- feel like money you or your friends would drop on something like this? Is a $40 boombox that is cute and plays CDs worth it just for the novelty/ nostalgia?

Also, I run my boomboxes off Li rechargeable batteries. Does this feel like an essential upgrade in 2026? Are regular alkaline OK and just tell folks they can get rechargeables on Amazon if they want? Hesitant to shell out for rechargeables for every box, bc that makes it feel more like “business” I need to invest in rather than a fun hunt.

What follows is my current list of boomboxes with specs, condition notes, and audio notes. DM if you have any questions about them – fun little machines and these CD boxes don’t get the love they deserve IMO! Also, I live in Chicago and work in the West Burbs if anyone wants to meet up and do a boombox hang and CD swap!

Make: Sony
Model: ZS-RS60BT
Years: 2014–2022
Speakers: Two full-range 2w speakers, 4w total
Condition: Excellent, little cosmetic wear, bluetooth pairs
Special features: Bluetooth, rip CDs to usb drive (!), Mega Bass, aux-in
Notes: The end of an era! The last boombox Sony made. Very cool unit with bluetooth and CD/radio – great for digital music hoarders who want to rip disks to USB. Clean and modern sound. Great for indoors or a picnic, but not a “beach dance party” box.

Make: Aiwa
Model: CSD-ES365
Years: c. 1996–1998
Speakers: Two 100mm cones and two 27mm tweeters, 5w total
Condition notes: VGC,  minor cosmetic wear, all functions intact
Special features: Early “Q-sound” digital audio processing, dedicated tweeters for great mids and highs.
Notes: Sleeper hit! Not “hi-fi” sound, but closer to shelf-system quality than thumping ghetto blaster.

Make: Sony
Model: CFD-8
Years: 1994-1999
Speakers: Two 100mm cones, 4.6w total
Condition notes: Good. CD and radio perfect, cassette non-functional (likely needs belt) 
Special features: None, cuz it don’t need em!
Notes: Classic, no frills boombox! The loudest 4.6w you’ll ever hear. That pure nostalgic CD boombox sound.

Make: Philips
Model: AZ1500
Years: c. 2000–2002
Speakers: 2 ported 1w drivers, 2w total
Condition notes: VGC, all features working
Special features: Ported cabinet, lots of programming options
Notes: Surprisingly good sound from a small unit! Gets loud and stays clean doing it. The bass ports and cabinet design make this sound way better than 2w has any right to.

Make: Philips
Model: AZ1518
Years: 1997–1998
Speakers:Two ported 4" 4w cones, 8w total
Condition notes: VGC, all functions work. No remote, but the original marketing stickers that say it came with a remote are still there!
Special features: Dynamic bass boost, “surround sound” early digital processing mode, preset EQs, Motorized CD drawer
Notes: This is a great “adult” boombox –  the digital processing is impressive for the late 90s giving a more open “surround sound feel”. The 8w speakers let it crank with zero distortion.

Make: Sony
Model: ZS-X1
Years: 2003
Speakers: Two 100mm, 2.3w, rear-ported drivers, 4.6w total
Condition notes: Excellent, all functions work, no yellowing of plastic
Special features: Mega Bass (2-position), rubberized sports housing, water resistant
Notes: This is my personal out and about boombox. Great sound and the best y2k styling Sony’s designers could dream up. Rugged waterproof styling and the coolest recessed antenna you ever did see!

Make: Sony
Model: CFD-S05
Years: 2010-2011
Speakers: Two 80mm 1w drivers, 2w total
Condition notes: Excellent condition, all functions work
Special features: Bass boost, line-in
Notes: Late model Sony entry level boombox, only 2w of total power but has an excellent ‘boombox” sound. Line in means you can plug in your phone too!

Make: Sony 
Model: CFD-33
Years: 1997
Speakers: Two 100mm 2.5w drivers, 5w total
Condition notes: OK. Cassette not working (likely needs new belts), antenna broken, no remote
Special features: Mega Bass
Notes: Well loved but still blasting! The boombox of 10,000 dorm rooms. Great 90s Sony sound with a dedicated bass port.

Make: Sony 
Model: CFD-F10 
Years: 2009 
Speakers: Two 100mm full-range cones, two 20mm tweeters, 9W total, with center passive radiator 
Condition: VGC, all functions work, no remote
Special features: Mega Bass, Mega Xpand digital “surround sound” enhancement, light-up passive radiator ring!
Notes: My “at home listening” personal box. Impressive late Sony from when tech still had a soul! Killer UFO styling with an impressive speaker array and loud boombox sound. Passive radiator and driver/tweeter set means this box sounds incredible even at low volume. GOAT Sony recessed antenna!

Make: Sony
Model: CFD-G50
Years: 1999-2004
Speakers: Two 100 mm full-range cone drivers at 3w each, plus one 80mm woofer at 12w, 18w total
Condition: VGC, all functions work, no cosmetic damage, missing remote
Special features: Power Drive Woofer with dedicated amp, Mega Bass, Digital Bass Boost, mode-based EQ, line-in
Notes: This thing CRANKS! Sony party box designed just before they jumped the shark with the super aggro Xplod styling. Mode based EQ and cool vintage DSP give this box a whole range of voices. This thing chews through batteries – you have been warned!

Edit for IDs:

Left column top to bottom:
Sony ZS-RS60BT (bluetooth and rip CD to USB)
Sony ZS-X1 (personal collection for the vibe!)
Sony CFD-F10 (personal collection and fave sound)

Middle top to bottom:
Sony CFD-S05
Sony CFD-33
Sony CFD-8
Sony CFD-G50

Right top to bottom:
Phillips AZ1518
Phillips AZ1500
Aiwa CSD-ES365