Description
In the late 2010s, I retrieved this Emerson PD3500RD boombox from the trash at the location where I used to work. I kept it at work and used it in my office for several years to listen to Chaz&AJ on 99.1WPLR when I had the early shift. I occasionally listened to music on it, but not frequently as I had a decent set of speakers in the office and a computer with Spotify. I brought it to my next job where it sat in the common area in my office, where we occasionally used it to listen to CDs. After I was laid off, I brought it home and it has sat under the studio bench ever since.
Since I was mostly listening to the talk show on it, I never paid too much attention to the sound quality. It was good enough for how I used it, and that was about as much consideration as I ever gave it. It didn't get the best reception, but I think that was due to the building itself and the location from the transmitter. It worked enough, and since it was free, it was satisfactory.
I've had a handful of people ask about this unit as it makes cameo appearances in other videos. Curiosity grew myself, so now we finally take a better look at it. I'm glad we did, if nothing else to discover the 8 C alkaline cells within it that were bound to cause an issue eventually. Fortunately they were Royovac, not Duracell, so there was minor leakage and no damage yet.
I've never seen the packaging for one of these units so I'm not sure how it was advertised, but this has quite a few functions onboard. It has a tape player/recorder, a CD player, and AM/FM tuner with auto seek, and a clock with corresponding alarm, snooze, and sleep timer functions.
The unit was manufactured in 2004 by Emerson Radio. The majority of electronics carrying the Emerson name in the 2000s didn't exactly have a reputation for quality. I had very low expectations for this unit, but it actually is quite a pleasant surprise in some areas.
The clock aspect leaves a lot to be desired. The display has very poor visibility and operation and setting of the clock and alarm is rather clunky. That's about all that's wrong with it though. The tape player still works fine, the CD player still works fine, and the FM radio tuner still works fine and seems to have average reception power. I was pleasantly surprised with the audio quality. It has clean, bright sound on the high end and holds a decent bass response for the size of the unit. It has a handful of EQ settings which improve the sound noticeably.