I had a few radios in the 80s, nothing 'spectacular' by collecting standards, but like most of our childhood/teenage favourite things it was very special to me. I had bought a small threepiecer at the start of 1985, it was a cheap, no name, low-feature box, but I loved it. I've still never seen this exact box anywhere online since I began hunting for it, so that grail quest continues. That box was pretty short lived however (probably explaining why people haven't got them now) and the tape deck died by mid 1985, causing me to look for a new one. During this time my part-time job after school had meant I could save for something more high end and towards the end of the year I found my true audio love. It had the looks, features and price that I could afford and saved up as fast as I could to get her. I cut out the ad from the newspaper for her and carried it around in my wallet. I visited her every day after school at the shop she currently lived in. Quizzing the salesmen about it whenever I could.
I finally got her home and was enraptured by my new purcahse. This radio was everything I could have hoped for. Glorious design, soft touch controls, Dolby!, an LED meter!!! and a graphic equaliser!! This was to be my first stereo love for years to come. I took her everywhere, recorded countless tapes off the radio on her. Spent every Sunday night listening to American Top 40, watching the bouncing LED meter in my dark bedroom with my finger on the pause button just waiting for Casey Kasem to play some hot new tunes I could record. The Christmas of 1986 found me receiving my first turntable, the best present my Dad ever bought me, enabling me to hook it up to my radio and listen to and record and of course collect my favourite 80s artists on vinyl. This was the golden age of the 12inch single and I'd constantly be picking them up from the record shops in town and then recording mix tapes of all my favourite remixes. There was a problem though, to listen to my turntable on my radio I had to put it into record+pause mode as there was no dedicated mode position. After a couple of years I managed to wear the mechanism out and eventually moved on to new equipment when it failed for the last time. My first love did live on as the shop radio where I worked, and often times I'd watch that LED meter bounce up and down and remember the great times we had.
But things changed, like most of us I moved up to component audio and and soon forgot all about that radio. Then when the passion ignited in me years ago and I began collecting boomboxes, the neeeed to have my first love back in my life was a priority. However, I soon discovered that although this radio was very special to me, it didn't seem to be popular anywhere else. I never saw one on any websites, or collection photos on here or stereo2go, I searched high and low on eBay and never saw her there either. Being a Philips, I thought there had to be oodles of them made, but maybe I was wrong?
Finally the other week I saw one on eBay, FINALLLY. The only one I'd seen anywhere since my original one. Some quick messages to the seller and she was mine and then she turned up earlier this week. And was it worth the wait? All that time looking for? Yes. Most definitely yes. After spending today getting her all working properly I sat back, put in a tape, and savoured the moment. This is what it's all about. Every detail on her I remembered perfectly. Playing with the EQ and Spatial controls to get the perfect sound is still a wonderful experience. Watching the LED meter bounce up and down to my favourite tunes is totally priceless.
So, she's back in my collection and back in action, so I guess you'd like to see her now? Well, get ready!
And prepare for the majesty of the Philips D8543 Stereo Sound Machine!!
Of course after all this, I'm expecting half a dozen of you to pipe up and say "Oh, yeah, I've seen those before. I pass them every other swap meet I go to, didn't think they were anything special." But for me, this is as valuable to me as my M90s, BigBen, 777, DiscoLite, 931, etc etc. Sentimentality does it every single time!
Rock On.
I finally got her home and was enraptured by my new purcahse. This radio was everything I could have hoped for. Glorious design, soft touch controls, Dolby!, an LED meter!!! and a graphic equaliser!! This was to be my first stereo love for years to come. I took her everywhere, recorded countless tapes off the radio on her. Spent every Sunday night listening to American Top 40, watching the bouncing LED meter in my dark bedroom with my finger on the pause button just waiting for Casey Kasem to play some hot new tunes I could record. The Christmas of 1986 found me receiving my first turntable, the best present my Dad ever bought me, enabling me to hook it up to my radio and listen to and record and of course collect my favourite 80s artists on vinyl. This was the golden age of the 12inch single and I'd constantly be picking them up from the record shops in town and then recording mix tapes of all my favourite remixes. There was a problem though, to listen to my turntable on my radio I had to put it into record+pause mode as there was no dedicated mode position. After a couple of years I managed to wear the mechanism out and eventually moved on to new equipment when it failed for the last time. My first love did live on as the shop radio where I worked, and often times I'd watch that LED meter bounce up and down and remember the great times we had.
But things changed, like most of us I moved up to component audio and and soon forgot all about that radio. Then when the passion ignited in me years ago and I began collecting boomboxes, the neeeed to have my first love back in my life was a priority. However, I soon discovered that although this radio was very special to me, it didn't seem to be popular anywhere else. I never saw one on any websites, or collection photos on here or stereo2go, I searched high and low on eBay and never saw her there either. Being a Philips, I thought there had to be oodles of them made, but maybe I was wrong?
Finally the other week I saw one on eBay, FINALLLY. The only one I'd seen anywhere since my original one. Some quick messages to the seller and she was mine and then she turned up earlier this week. And was it worth the wait? All that time looking for? Yes. Most definitely yes. After spending today getting her all working properly I sat back, put in a tape, and savoured the moment. This is what it's all about. Every detail on her I remembered perfectly. Playing with the EQ and Spatial controls to get the perfect sound is still a wonderful experience. Watching the LED meter bounce up and down to my favourite tunes is totally priceless.
So, she's back in my collection and back in action, so I guess you'd like to see her now? Well, get ready!
And prepare for the majesty of the Philips D8543 Stereo Sound Machine!!
Of course after all this, I'm expecting half a dozen of you to pipe up and say "Oh, yeah, I've seen those before. I pass them every other swap meet I go to, didn't think they were anything special." But for me, this is as valuable to me as my M90s, BigBen, 777, DiscoLite, 931, etc etc. Sentimentality does it every single time!
Rock On.
very nice radio and great story 
.
