Lasonic Ghetto Blaster i931 - Bring Back The Old School

Wow! This Lasonic boombox is amazing looking! Bringing back the 80's old school boombox in full force. I was pretty young during the 80's but I remember my uncle having a TRC-931 Lasonic boombox, it was huge and loud. I always wanted one, unfortunately for me (but very fortunately for my cousin!) he had a son and he passed it on to him, lucky guy!

Luckily for me the people at Lasonic decided they would resurrect this beast in the form of the i931 Lasonic boombox and do they ever look like the old school boombox from the 80's, the new one even has a cassette-like slot that pops open for your ipod to hide in!

There are quite a few standard features on this beast, check them out (be sure to check out the pros and cons at the bottom of the page):

• Full function remote control
• Supported USB flash disk and SD/MMC card to playback MP3 files
• EQ adjustment and separate bass and treble controls
• iPod control and charging
• AUX IN for extension function
• Headphone jack output
• Microphone input and volume/echo adjustment (for all you karaoke stars!)
• Using AC power or batteries for operation
• Alarm function - wake up, sleep
• Show RBDS (Radio Broadcast Data System) text on LCD display
• FM 20 preset stations and AM 20 preset stations
• Good reception Tuner function (AM/FM/RBDS)
• Powerful speaker sound system (12W x 2)
• Volume level indicator
• Come in classic black, or my favorite, the amazing looking white!

A few of these are pretty standard features among stereos, however, some of them are really awesome. The ipod charging while docked is huge for me, I hate it when it runs out of battery since I use it for music in my car, my Lasonic Ghetto Blaster i931 and at work. Another big one is the fully functional remote that actually works! I bought a couple of portable stereos and the remote wouldn't change the song only the volume, very disappointing! The microphone input has provided some pretty entertaining moments, people always want to be the MC! Did I mention it's loud? This beast can definitely blast the bass, but be careful, sometimes not everyone wants to hear the bass go boom!

As with anything there are good things and bad, I personally think that the good far outweigh the bad in this situation but I'll lay them out so you can judge for yourself!

Pros:

• The extremely nostalgic funky styling of the i931 is by far the biggest selling point
• It's very, very loud - I was surprised by it, actually
• Having an iPod, iPhone interface is really nice since most people have one these days
• The remote actually works, you can change songs, stations and volume
• The USB connection is also great, I use it often when the beast is running on battery power so my iPod doesn't suck the life out of the batteries.
• It has a nice folder button for browsing files on your USB key or SD card

Cons:

• 10 D batteries - this is by far the biggest issue for me, luckily I already had a charger and rechargeable batteries. I would really recommend getting a charger and some batteries.
• The sound quality isn't amazing at extremely high volume, it's still very acceptable, though.
• No EQ sliders! Really a very minor gripe, more nostalgia than anything.

All in all, I really like mine, it's got style, functionality and loud playback. For under $130 it's a really good deal, considering I paid $180 for mine last year!
Cheers,
- Gregg