Sanyo MGR 80 Review

The MGR 80 is a lovely radio cassette, which not only looks good but also sounds great providing you use a good pair of headphones. This is a large unit measuring 84 mm × 140 mm × 36.5 mm in dimensions, and mass 342 g without batteries. I decided to buy this because I had never seen one of these before apart from in magazines. Although it was broken, I decided to get it as a future project, to keep me out of trouble. I managed to repair mine and the sound is excellent through my Sony MDR-W15 headphones.

This unit has a graphic equaliser that boosts the bass and treble by +10 dB, and is worth hearing. In this model, the electronic design uses the Sanyo audio chipset, which is extremely loud, and the power output is 20 mW per channel through a 32 Ω headphone coil. If you use other headphones with lower impedance, then it should be louder. This is a more advanced chipset because it requires only 3 V to operate, and is a great improvement on older designs that required four "AA" size dry cells.

This is a very deceptive unit because from the outside, it looks like a basic design, with a plastic case; however, it has a metal chassis, crafted components, and advanced chipset that makes it appear to be a higher end unit. The white arrows on the cassette compartment lid are for design only, and there is no switch underneath, however they have certainly tried to jazz up the cosmetic design.

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