RCA RP-7981A boombox, is a pretty good unit, loaded with alot of features you don't find on egg boomboxes, like dolby NR, can play metal type tapes, autoreverse, tape transport made out of metal not cheap plastic, AMS music scan, dual cassette, full logic control, AC bias on cassette deck so record sure be good, bi-amp for full range, and subs, remote control, line in, very heavy and good sound. Going to take apart and cleanup and will be keeping it.

is it free range

Nice pick-up. I think, there is a sanyo clone of it?

I think, it may be battery lav .

yeah it looks battery fed to me Rich

never mind that az....i hope it was free full stop!

It does look like Sanyo builted it?

Figure go ahead and do a rebuilted as it was pretty dirty, so spray and clean the switches change belts in cassette deck area, shame as it only one motor.

Here the subwoofer encloser.

Cassette transports after being rebuilted

CD transport section

speakers being cleaned

Before

After

Here it all back togetheir

Where is this RCA boombox made in? And what year?

last pic on the original post shows Made In Japan September 1990... 

It's very ugly

Agreed I never could cozy up to the egg BBX's.   Needs square corners for me .

But some do have newer tech and can sound pretty darn good.   Maurice yours does seem to have all the bells and whistles included and great that its all refurbished and working well.  Great for outdoors working on cars.  You still have that older green V8 Mustang?

nice look for a 90's boombox with a cd player

I have the same box retrodos.   Mine even has the remote.  I have to say it is a strange box (?) or to be more accurate, egg, to be sure.  Loads of features and heavier than heck.   I got mine from a couple who were having a moving sale close to my house.  He had it since college.  He seemed somewhat nostalgic about it but he obviously had moved on since the house he was ln and had just sold was close to a million smackers and could have housed the whole of Omaha proper by the looks of it.

Anyway, I think I posted it here for sale and had no takers so now it resides in the basement with all of my excess equipment, which is another story in itself    I seem to recall the box is very bass heavy and not really good on the high frequencies.  Maybe I was using a crappy tape and should give it a try with a good CD for comparison purposes.

I have one of these, manufactured in March 1991, and I am going to give it to a friend to replace his even older but smaller boom box that is on it's last legs. I need the AC power cord and have misplaced the remote control somewhere. It has been sitting for years in a spare bedroom and was very dusty but I cleaned up the outside of it somewhat, then took it up to the local Radio Shack and tried the two types of replacement AC cords that they had for sale, and neither one would power up the unit. It seems there is a little toggle switch at the bottom of the hole where the AC cord plugs in, and if the replacement cord dimensions are not proper to actuate that switch the unit will not cut out the batteries and switch to the internal DC power supply. One workaround perhaps would be to wrap some electricians tape around the outside of the end that plugs into the box, until it was the proper size to keep that switch depressed. Also the plastic clips that retain the extendable radio antenna when it is collapsed and not being used, are broken off. The antenna itself is whole and in one piece. I could fill it with 10 D cell batteries, but that is cost prohibitive, and the thing weighs a ton even with no batteries inside it except for the three AA cells required to keep the timer/clock running. It's been years since I listened to it, and not sure how the speakers have held out to time, but I know it sounded very good when I purchased it new. One thing I miss about not having a remote, the surround sound can only be switched on by the remote, there is no button on the unit itself to do that. The surround mode made a huge difference in listening quality.

Is it for sale? I had one back in 1991 it got messed by 10 forgotten batteries inside.

Is it for sale?

I generally avoid anything branded RCA they never last.

I generally avoid anything branded RCA they never last.

Thats why it needed a complete rebuilt I guess A lot of dedication to put so much effort in an egg, great.

the only good cd boomboxes are the panasonic cobras and jvc kabooms.....sorry,that said its down to individual taste isnt it

Actually, I bought mine in 1991 and still have the thing. Back then - it was the 'BEST' sounding box I believe you could get. As a matter of fact - I still think it's the best sounding box. To really hear the true quality of surround sound on this unit, you do need the remote. It's the only way to activate the surround sound. That's the ONLY thing I don't like about this box. After all these years, my sub woofer went. It's behind the right speaker and I was looking for a replacement speaker when I ran across this blog. So just wanted to say that this guy was built to last !! 

To illustrate this here is my version = IMG_1140 JVC RV-NB1 Kaboom (Tube) versus the smaller, Panasonic RX-DS45 (egg shape) Boombox