Boots PSR 99

The PSR 99 (also written PSR-99) was a personal stereo AM/FM radio cassette player manufactured in Korea by the Boots Corporation. As well as being a very famous High Street chemist in the United Kingdom, they also had their own line of stereo cassette players with model names that usually began with "PSR". There was also the PSR 30GE and PSR 90, which also had graphic equalizers. The unit featured in this multi-page article has the following features and specifications.

• Automatic reverse with direction control
• 3-band graphic equalizer (100 Hz, 1 kHz, 10 kHz)
• Tape/Radio switch
• MW/FM bands with selector switch
• FM Stereo LED indicator
• Variable capacitor manual tuning
• Anti-rolling mechanism
• DC power input socket
• 2 × AA size batteries required

Review

This is a very robust design with a generous amount of plastic and substantial weight with a pair of batteries. The tape transport mechanism (TTM) has plastic cogwheels that are thick and rugged; consequently the unit continues to perform well today. Toothed cogwheels are of course ideal to have compared to rubber tyre surfaces that tend to wear out. The pushbutton mechanism has metal parts and gives a nice satisfying click when the buttons are pressed. These early units were very well built and designed and produce a wonderful sound providing you use a good pair of headphones with them. I managed to get a unit that had very little wear, and the audio head and drive belt were still in good condition. The volume control and graphic equalizer sliders crackled and simply needed cleaning with an electrical contact cleaner.

The outside plastic finish with simple design does not impress much, however, the electronic engineering inside is superb for the time and unexpected. The chipset, circuitry and engineering were very impressive and I saw the following integrated circuits (IC).

• ROHM BA3516 stereo pre/power amplifier solution
• Toshiba TA7757P FM/AM IF system
• Toshiba TA7342P PLL FM stereo multiplex
• Sanyo LA1185 FM front end providing RF amp, mixer, and local oscillator

Many of these ICs would have been used in high-end Sony Walkmans, and the sound quality including performance is very good. I managed to find one with a good audio head and the sound through my headphones was very sharp especially with the boost provided by the graphic equalizer.

Price/eBay

This is an early basic unit that would have been mass manufactured for the budget end of the market; however I do not see Boots branded ones often in the pre-used markets. Changing the drive belt is time-consuming but not impossible for a determined hobbyist looking for a challenge. A broken unit on its own requiring a new drive belt could be worth around five to ten pounds depending upon condition and day. A unit in mint condition together with its original box and headphones could be a collectable item and worth much more. The following pages of this multi-page article show photographs of the inside engineering taken when I repaired it.

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