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What are some of the most over-the-top, obnoxious looking components from the 80s?

HiFinotWiFi

HiFinotWiFi

New Member
When I say over-the-top or onbnoxious I'm talking about things like the Kenwood Galaxy Commander,
KenwoodKR10000-1.jpg


the Sansui Z9000,
ad96ccdec7d77b0cd377476b7f61cf1e.jpg


the Kenwood RA-80 and Akai EA-A7
maxresdefault.jpg


and the AIWA AD-F770
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components of any type that, while they look awesome in their own special way, all have more than their fair share of bright, colorful VFDs and other various different displays, whether they be a VU meter or something completely unecessary and abstract like a reverb level indicator, unecessary gimmicks, buttons, features, labels and anything else that comes to mind!
 
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Hey now, the Kenwood KR-1000 needed that crazy front along with the cheesy wood top to justify the $1250 asking price in 1982. Obnoxious looking, but actually a pretty good sounding receiver.
1482.jpg

Sony STR-AV950 "Look Ma, no knobs!"
 
I have one of these, and the models above and below.

This is an autoreverse fully programmable (by direct track selection) up to 30 tracks in any order from either side.

Glass crystal heads on ceramic stoppers, optical autoreverse, digital level control, dolby B/C etc. Introscan, blank skip you name it.

Circa 1985ish.

gxr55.JPG

I actually like the looks of the Akai decks.
 
For me, it's almost every Monster Receiver I ever saw (one exception). There's a cadre on AK who loves them, whereas I never did, not only the looks but the SQ. With voluminous threads devoted to them, I don't recall anyone explaining their appeal, beyond "watts" and maybe the perennial male concern that size matters. If it does, the SO should love that behemoth, but their WAF was pretty low.

"To each his own" is a reasonable enough explanation.

The OP includes the AIWA AD-F770. I concede it's from the Flash Design School, but it was such a great deck I forgave it any aesthetic sins. I had 3 of them, I liked it so much. A friend had the Nakamichi Dragon, the "ultimate", and I brought a 770 over to compare. He politely tried to hide a smirk when he saw it. But after making and hearing a few test tapes he wasn't smirking. Yes the Dragon was better, but by a very small margin and he freely admitted it .
 
HiFinotWiFi said:
When I say over-the-top or onbnoxious I'm talking about things like the Kenwood Galaxy Commander,
KenwoodKR10000-1.jpg


the Sansui Z9000,
ad96ccdec7d77b0cd377476b7f61cf1e.jpg


the Kenwood RA-80 and Akai EA-A7
maxresdefault.jpg


and the AIWA AD-F770
maxresdefault.jpg


components of any type that, while they look awesome in their own special way, all have more than their fair share of bright, colorful VFDs and other various different displays, whether they be a VU meter or something completely unecessary and abstract like a reverb level indicator, unecessary gimmicks, buttons, features, labels and anything else that comes to mind!
Click to expand...
Welcome to AK, HiFinotWiFi. Thanks for starting an excellent thread. I was a teen when most of the displayed items were manufactured in the 80s and even deemed their appearance a bit over the top back then. Manufacturers were so busy trying to ride the transition train from analog to digital reproduction of music that they, in my opinion, tried a bit too hard to differentiate the new top-of-the-line digital consumer products from the analog predecessors. I will admit that I was hooked by a few of the graphic spectrum analysers (you know, the ones with the "bouncing" bars...) but the rest was merely annoying eye-candy. I would visit the homes of certain folks, see displays like the ones presented thus far and wish there was a way to dim them or simply turn them off.
 
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restorer-john said:
This is an autoreverse fully programmable (by direct track selection) up to 30 tracks in any order from either side.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation, restorer-john. That explains the stomach-twitching quantity of buttons on the face of the unit. I was trying for the life of me to figure out what would warrant that many buttons in regard to the JVC Super Digifine RX 1010.
 
Oh, by the way... I can't judge the aesthetics of the products displayed above without adding my own contribution. Here's what emerged from under the tree when I was 12 during Christmas in '85:

Soundesign.jpg
Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/32911630@N03/5677893595

At that age, this Soundesign "system" was a prized possession as it beat the Panasonic detachable AM/FM unit hand-me-down I used prior to that point in time:
 
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