I am excited to get my BB-777 because it looks almost identical to the GF-777. I don't have a GF-777 currently, so it will look nice in my collection. This isn't my first Bumpboxx radio. Back in the day I purchased the very first Freestyle boombox speaker that Bumpboxx produced. If I recall correctly, I paid about 5 or 600 hundred dollars for it and I still have it....and it still works to this day. Later, I backed the NWT mini M90 project. I have 3 of them. A blue speaker kickstarter model, a black speaker final production model (when AM was made available) and the Slick Rick version. I enjoy all of my radios new and old and have all of them displayed in my boom room together. I have no regrets on my purchases.
Now comes the part where I am going to try to say what I want to say without offending anyone because that certainly isn't my intention. I want to start off by saying that I absolutely know nothing about mass production or running a fortune 5 hundred company. I can only speak to my personal experiences, feelings and opinions from the customer side of things based on my previous experiences.
I was one of Bumpboxx's first customers from back in the day. I purchased their very first OG Freestyle Bumpboxx many years ago. I was excited to get it out and let it rip
After a while I noticed that my songs were not streaming in stereo. I checked my phones Bluetooth settings and noticed when I adjusted the balance left and right the box was Mono. Upon further investigation, the radio was too. I won't lie, I was bit deflated. At the same time I also knew that I should have researched things a bit better. I was one of the first to notice....so my first thought was to make sure this was known so people spending their money would know what to expect. I figured this would be something people would want to know because I knew how I felt after my purchase and found out.
With that being said, I want to be clear here...I am not bashing Bumpboxx. They never claimed that their first model Freestyle was in stereo. I assumed it was because it had a horn tweeter and a 10 inch woofer on each side. But you know what they say about people that assume. Later, it became stereo and that's a good thing. They listened to their customers. For the BB-777 project, I commend Bumpboxx for sending Techmoan a pre-production model to evaluate. This showed me, the customer, that the company has faith and confidence in their product and is willing to address any issues to improve it. There were a few things that Techmoan noticed that, if it was possible in the current stage of production to correct, were corrected. Especially the CD missing a second or two at the beginning track. I would have caught that one. I now know that radio reception is less when charging. This is all valuable information that is nice to know before you buy. So all of that is a huge plus in my book. People should know what they are buying. Some of the things that were corrected would have been a little discouraging to find out later once it arrived at your doorstep... just like my Mono experience.
I have reason to believe that there will be more old school looking radios to come in the future. Quite possibly the M90 or C100 variants. I mention all of this because we know, and it should be expected, that there are going to be differences between the old and new. Not just because of the added features but because of the available componenets today. We are all aware that the cassette transport isn't going to match the old school radios from any new device. In the case of the M90, I have no doubt the company could accomplish making a full logic control cassette mechanism that would replicate the OG M90 transport, but the cost would be so high for that feature that only us boombox enthusiasts would pay that additional price for a high end cassette player. I am guilty at looking at things from the mindset of a collector who knows and owns these original radios. It was brought to my attention, and rightfully so, that most average consumers who will also be purchasing, and need to outside of our community for it to be financially profitable, likely won't even know what a full logic cassette deck is.
In my mind, when I think of an affordable M90 reproduction from Bumpboxx, I see it being made with a mechanical deck with the keys below the cassette door. I see the cassette side buttons that were used on the OG unit for the full logic transport, being used for CD player, Bluetooth and USB/SD card functions. I see the CD player in the middle above the VU meters or possibly off to the side because I doubt it will have 6 SW modes to choose from. But it's possible
So, if you are getting hyped on the possibility of a M90 from Bumpboxx that's great. Like Melvin mentioned, I would expect it to be better in every way sound and power wise but its cassette player isn't going to be a sophisticated full logic deck like the OG M90. I imagine a moderm M90 example will likely have mechanical keys below the door. This will cosmetically deviate from the original design but is something I would be interested in seeing how that plays out if that is the next radio coming. Modern features alone are going to change the detailed appearance so I guess cassette keys below the door isn't the end of the world and is just my guess on what I think could happen. IMO if you were wanting to keep the original look as much as possible, the C100F would be a better match cosmetically for the decks available today because it naturally has the keys below the cassette door. But again, this is just my opinion. I do not know the first thing about designing a radio.
I am sure whatever they come out with will be something that will sell and be as close to the original in design as possible.
