Well I got it!!!
Filthy, paint stains, dead right channel and deck, crusty knobs and antenna - yep, your typical Gumtree.com.au Boombox
Turns out the seller was a Philips employee from the 70s and 80s. He said he bought this Boombox in 1980 at staff rates. He also mentioned this model was a huge seller for Philips at the time.
After looking at the state of this box and the weak sound output, I was wondering what all the fuss was about!
As found:

Yep, it's a very poor looking but cheap $60 local example of the famous Philips D-8623.

I honestly looked at the right hand side of the FM tuner window and saw the number 88 and thought this Philips was some weird JDM model.
The volume pot was scratchy, the left channel was flat sounding and the right channel was whisper quiet - hmmmm....... not a good sign.
Warranty card still inside the unused battery compartment!
After cracking and I mean 'cracking' the rear case screws loose, I pulled the back cover to reveal some drivers with ultra small magnets, plastic deck, very thin speaker wires, piezo tweeters but a beafy looking amp board heatsink.



After cleaning the control pots, I discovered the spacial stereo pot was the cause of the dropped out right channel and flat sounding left channel. All is well with speaker output now.
This pot was also extremely stiff to turn as were the balance, treble and bass pots to a leser degree.
The tuner worked fine on all bands with a solid FM stereo lock on too.
I just wanted to get it sounding right so after doing the basics, I replaced the rear cover and fired her up again for a proper test drive.
WTF???????? With loudness off and the tone controls set to flat, I can hear a rumbling bass line already! Loudness on and the bass and treble knobs set to the 3 o'clock position and all of a sudden, the M75 just got stomped on for mid volume level performance - particularly bass!!!
Time to test the RCA line in. Select a track on my old IPhone 5S and no ****, the stupid smile on my face must have been visable from the moon!

A line in with a perfect sensitivity level is always welcome on a vintage Boombox.
The thing that really amazed me was how high you can crank the volume with the bass maxed before it craps out. The performance really reminds me of the Crown 850 and M9994. Except despite the specs, this thing spanks both models for volume levels with the bass pumped.
It's feather light even with 8 Ds loaded too so I can see this thing getting some solid outdoor time.
I've always taken note of the positive comments regarding this model and now I'm a true believer.
Astoundingly good.
I'll give her a proper experior clean up to get her looking right.
This will be no shelf queen, this thing has been sitting in a wardrobe for 25 years and it's time she saw some sunshine!
Hats off to Philips for this effort - unbelievable!
