Bumpboxx BB-777
Apparently a lot of people contacted Bumpboxx to ask when they were going to ‘send Techmoan a BB-777’ as they wanted to see what I thought of it. I guess I must have gained a reputation for not being a Youtube shill, which is good.
Anyway Bumpboxx gave in and gave the public (or a small subsection of it) what they wanted and as a result, here’s my video about this modern day Sharp GF-777 lookalike.
https://youtu.be/_1DAyHpP1ok
This one has been a real slog to get finished (hence the delay). Unfortunately it turned out to be a moving feast. I’ll explain more about the behind the scenes in the next Oddcast in a few weeks. Needless to say, I’m very relieved to be able to finally draw a line under this video, for the time being. No doubt I’ll be revisiting the BB-777 in some manner when my finished one arrives, but for the moment I’d much rather think about other things.
But yes this whole escapade has taught me a thing or two about attempting to review products that aren’t retail ready. The main one being that I’m on a hiding to nothing in even attempting it.
It’d be like reviewing an early cut of Jurassic Park with ‘CGI Dinosaur scene appears here’ inserts.
Unfortunately though another ‘pre-production’ product is already on its way to me, so I’m not out of the woods yet. But after I’ve fulfilled that obligation I hope to just stick to finished boxed retail products. The only problem with that is that there are a lot of new products that I just couldn’t afford, don’t want to own or wouldn’t be happy paying for merely to make a video about.
Anyone who claims to have ‘reviewed’ something that is not a 100% finished product, is an obsequious twit. But then again in a world of firmware updates, it’s rare for anything to be ‘finished’ now - well, not until it’s abandoned and rendered useless.
That said, if I hadn’t taken a look at the Bumpboxx BB-777 I wouldn’t have spotted a few things on it that needed to be revised/fixed and as a result over 8000 Kickstarter backers could be less happy with their devices.
Note - due to this video overrunning and the time constraints with this device’s Kickstarter campaign I need to get this video published on Youtube as soon as possible for it to have any relevance.
However I have been working on another video at the same time as this one. I need to get that one finished up, but all being well it should be available on Patreon after the weekend with more of an exclusive window.
I’m going for a lie down now. Take care and have a good weekend.
UPDATE: Someone has shared the video somewhere on a group forum, so I might as well add the adverts in and make it public early.
Extra bit of text...
I just want to explain why I'm not attempting to answer every single question. The main reason is that I'm totally and utterly worn out with this one. I've been looking at it every day from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night. I see it when I close my eyes. I'd much rather move on to do something else and put this one in the rearview.
Comments (57)
Out of everything about this boombox, the one thing I really wish they had nailed is the sound quality. For $650, sure, it does a lot, but there are plenty of cheaper devices that also “do a lot” while still sounding mediocre. The aesthetics on this thing are incredible. That part feels fully realized. I just wish the audio side stuck the landing too. At this point, I’m hoping it at least sounds noticeably better than the original 777. But so far, the vibe I’m getting is that every feature was developed with a “keep moving to the next thing” mentality instead of fully refining what was already there. This review kind of reinforced that feeling, and honestly, it worries me a bit. I still backed it on Kickstarter, but as we get closer to final production, I’ve definitely started debating whether I should cancel my pledge. I already understand that the point of this device is the full retro experience: the giant boombox look, CD player, cassette deck, microphone inputs, Bluetooth, all of it. I’m not expecting it to magically turn into some ultra-audiophile speaker. I just hope the sound can at least get into the same ballpark as something like the JBL Xtreme 5 in terms of overall quality and soundstage. If it can pull that off while keeping the retro style and feature set, I’d honestly be happy. I don’t need perfection. I just want it to sound somwhat genuinely good, but I keep hearing stuff like "good bass, lacking mids" for all BBs. If I just heard someone say "nah its good for like outdoor BBQs or pool parties" im sold, but i fear this will be all style no substance, even tho thw only substance i truly care about is the sound
Hopefully they sent several pre-production units out to different people, I'm sure there's other issues you didn't notice. Better they find them now and get them fixed. Looking forward to the full review once it goes into full production.
It was a lovely video and a review done with love too. Overall it put me off the product. The quality control is extremely poor. It is no surprise that the company doesn't produce anything but basically buys it from China. Either you buy the product and put a label on it or you have it assembled to specs there, which seems to be the case here. Integration is not about putting things together on a bag as if you go to the bakery. A preproduction item must be compliant with all functions. This is not. Of course it is nice they ask for corrections to the manufacturer but it shows how little validation, hands on product they have. The issue of the wow and flutter is appalling. Sending you a video of a compliant product means absolutely nothing. Production is a statistics game.
As a kid, I used to do a lot of high speed dubbing, partly as it was amusing to hear your tapes sounding like they were an LP being played at 78! I actually tried to explain high speed dubbing to my 18 year old nephew the other week, when he was asking about a midi system in a charity shop. Sadly, I lost him at "You take a blank tape".
Would be really great if you do a follow up review when you get the production version to see what changes are done.
As a fellow VIP backer, I am a little worried that the excellent feedback you've given might not make it into all the first runs of production. I only worry about this because they've stated that they went into production in April.
From what they were saying to me it seemed like they were at the factory making these changes before full scale production, but I really don’t know.
I hope you had a sufficient relaxation after analyzing this monolith. My thought: I'd like to see you do something ridiculous and fun, in the vein of the The Sound Card ( https://youtu.be/-9-DxT_lf7M ) DJ Scam ( https://youtu.be/48G4qr37Bnc?si=xfyzoWrfnmuI2J1J ) or VMD skit ( https://youtu.be/07Z4iL8hy1A?si=GNJeFNoG0S-Ay9w- ). 😀 Or something low-effort but with a potentially high reward.
Very bold of them to believe enough in their product to send to you. And it's always a treat to see you actually chuffed about something.
Once the final product comes out, maybe we can get some kind of sound quality comparison between this and the We Are Rewind boombox. I did notice a lack of highs when you played music. It's almost as if the tweeters were disconnected. Maybe the crossovers were not wired properly in this unit.
Hopefully from an update (or hack) we could see optional LCD displays. I would love to see animated VU meters or spectrum analyzer.
Jock Jams, baby! Hey Ogre, LET'S BEAT UP SOME NEEEEERRRRDDDDSSS!!!
Whilst not in the market for a BB-777 myself, I'm impressed by Bumpboxx as a company. Not many would be so willing to allow a high-profile boombox connoisseur to beta test their product in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers. Here's hoping the BB-777 is successful enough for Bumpboxx to consider remakes of smaller and less expensive devices. I'd like a Sharp GF-7 homage in either red or blue, thanks.
This was the review I had been waiting for, It looks like a nice device but possible of trying to be too many at the same time??
Good one, worth the effort. As you said slightly concerning that they had not noticed some of the shortcomings before the prototype, but glad you were able to provide feedback. 👍
Very interesting video. Admittedly I was never going to buy one as I don't have room for it, or the need or desire. Nethertheless the poor power supply design that heavily affects the radio reception did make me worry for the quality of the product as a whole more than anything else. Shame as the product idea and design otherwise is good.
I might be an old fuddy -duddy, but this was a master class in reviewing a prototype device. But I checked the Bumpboxx site, thinking I’d like to gift these to my children. I have to say the price really took my breath away. You know when you say, “it cost $300 when it came out, which would around $1,000 in today’s market, adjusted to inflation.” It’s another thing you see it’s actually $1,000 and think, “well, that’s only $300, 35 years ago.” Anyway you try to figure it, it’s too rich for me.
Kudos to BumpBox for allowing you to try out a preproduction model in a very public space where they know no prisoners will be taken and many thousands of viewers will see it. Most of the issues you found (apart from wow and flutter) are probably software updates so not too hard to implement before final release. Good for them, a sign of a company that appreciates feedback.
I don't think they thought it would go quite like this. I think we both have regrets, them about sending a pre-production product presented as a pretty much finished product to someone who scrutinises things quite like this and me being on the receiving end of what I initially thought was a pretty much finished product but then ending up with a messy complicated video because things went south.
A great shame that someone has shared this link. Shame on the person who did that. When I'm watching these patreon videos on the TV, I tell the Mrs to close her eyes as she hasn't paid to see it, but I have. It's only fair!
but she's listening...surely that's worth a couple of pence. Most long suffering wives are only too happy to leave the room when I appear.
Among my most trivial of pet peeves: bitmapped displays that use this clumsy default display controller kind of serif typeface. It screams "DIY electronics project" to me and makes whatever-it-is look cheap. It'll do for testing purposes, but it ought to be reprogrammed with something that looks more polished and bespoke before the thing goes into mass production. (But as I acknowledged at the top: it's just a pet peeve, and it's a trivial one.)
You're not the only one - quite a few people have voiced their displeasure at the display. I'm not a fan of how it looks or the lack of functionality, but hey ho.
Mat, I don't know much about anything but I know a bit about radios and if the factory are telling the company that it's somehow an insurmountable fact of life that the stereo decoder can't get a lock when the AC power supply is connected they need to be pushed back on, pretty hard. The only thing that is a fact of life here is that bad power supply output shielding or suppression leads to bad FM reception. The Zenith-GE system is niggly to tune because only the mono (L+R) channel is actually FM - as well as this there's the pilot tone at 19kHz and the L-R signal (which is AM, not FM) centred around 38kHz. There's also the RDS subcarrier at the third harmonic of the pilot tone (57kHz) , so a good FM stereo receiver needs to have a _clean_ IF bandwidth of about 60kHz. As AM doesn't benefit from the capture effect in the way FM does, stereo signals will always be more prone to noise as the L-R signal is more susceptible to various forms of interference. If there's a big slab of power supply noise within that IF bandwidth it won't just affect the ability to decode stereo, it'll also make it impossible to decode RDS (which is a very desirable feature and even gets used in the USA). It might also desensitise the receiver front end because it increases the signal amplitude going into the receiver. So it isn't just delivering substandard FM stereo, it's going to perform worse with weaker FM signals as well and might also perform worse on MW and SW. Stereo is only the most obvious casualty of this poor design. FM stereo receivers powered by switched-mode supplies are always going to be at risk of having noise problems due to the switching frequency of the power supply generating spurious signals, but the shielding and suppression of these signals is a problem that was solved a long time ago and it's absolutely unacceptable to see it used in a modern-day product. This is no doubt also the reason for the noise on CD playback (seriously, what?). It's a show-stopper for what seemed really promising to me because it tells me there might be some nasty tradeoffs elsewhere as well. And as they're a US manufacturer the product will have to pass FCC certification before it can be legally sold in the States. If I were them I'd be going back to the design engineers at the factory with a "lol, no".
I can only pass on what they told me - it seems they have their reasons, perhaps this functionality or lack of it has already been set in stone many months ago.
I really enjoyed this video, so I appreciate that it took some persistence to complete. A new "Techmoan effect" 😊 Also - a pox on whoever shared the link, but I guess it was going to go out today anyway.
am I the only one who sees some kind of reference to Boeing planes in the model designations for hifi. this 777 and Akai 747. which I would have liked to have 😄
Pleasant surprise, thought we had to wait until next week, weekend for a video 👍🏻
That skipping the first bit in playback is buffer sync, I'm glad you reported it to them, because its SUPER easy to fix and is minimally impactful to their production run. Just a firmware update. They needed to immediately play out from the incoming bitstream and switch to the buffer seamlessly when it fills. That should also improve the startup delay too.
Thanks for making such great content, really cheers me up! :-) keep up the good work.
Guests around this weekend, so this is one of the few times I won't get to watch this til after it's gone live! 😁
Techmoan rap was not in my bingo card but I'll take it.
The Fan issue would be enough to put me off. Granted I work in acoustics, but still, broadband noise on dynamic music is a pain. That's why dolby made big bucks after all. There are many strategies to deal with both noise and heat. That fan is very small, the larger the diameter, lower rpms. The grills can be made with different spacing and non square shape. It does cost money and needs a bit of thinking on the plastic moulding, in oder not to have an insert on the tooling. Fan blades can be properly designed, it's spacing adapted and a good choice of motor can reduce noise dramatically. Finally, motor quality control is essential on keeping motor orders low. Don't ask. I have sat in cars which shield street noise just to get noise reflected by the head unit fan on the windshield directly in your face
Thanks for the review! I was hoping for a setup menu allowing to change the default volume and the font on the screen. This "times serif" screams "chinese crap" to me and this device doesn't deserve it. I appreciate the fact you were able to help them fix some big issues. Too bad they didn't answer about track number not displaying on screen, looks like a #1 need.
Never mind a sponsored video tag. For the level of testing and formal feedback it's almost worth them paying you a consultantcy fee. Maybe you have shown this before but can you test your wow and flutter meter with a digital source?? Great content
I've shown it a couple of times, but it gets tedious for the viewers if I show all the prep every time. The video is way too long already. However yes I do regularly play a 3khz tone into it from a digital device to check that hits perfect scores.
As someone who enjoys listening to discs recorded live, I am very curious whether the Bumpboxx cd mech features gapless playback between tracks. Perhaps a concert CD could be tested when time permits.
I’m pretty sure you won’t get gapless playback on anything other than decent hifi gear where it might be important to some of the customers, but it seems very unlikely on a boombox like this using a generic mech. I haven’t tested it, but this CD has more gaps than a bombed out high street.
That was a great use of editing. It felt like the issues you had with it where being fixed in real time. Quite liked that. It has been a long time since I was excited by any new "tech" but this retro styed boombox has got me. I have absolutely no need for it- but it is pretty tempting. It seems like a winner... who would have thought?
Something seems a little off about this video. I'm used to seeing your videos where the items reviewed just don't live up to the hype and are disappointing when they're not total pieces of rubbish. But this Bumpbox, while not perfect seems like it might be a great device. Even though this one had it's flaws, you found them, reported them to the company and they listened to your feedback, made necessary corrections and reported back to you. It looks like this might be a rare winner in the retro boombox field. And while the final verdict won't be known until the production models ship to customers, it's actually nice to see a video review where things seem to work out well for all involved--even if it seems "a little off."🙂👍
Obsequious - always good to learn a new word and I’m having that one.
The red one looks a great retro colour also. Which colour did you pick (or did you get a Founders Edition) PS the sticker gap on the rear upper is for your serial number plate on release. 🙂 Also, can the front LED Blue lights be dimmed or turned off during radio playback at all?
I just got the silver one, because I thought it was the only one I’d be getting and I planned to compare it with the original in a video. There doesn’t appear to be a way of dimming the radio dial lighting. The ID3 button on the remote is labelled ID3/Dim but it doesn’t seem to dim anything.
As a wise man once said: "But then again in a world of firmware updates, it’s rare for anything to be ‘finished’ now - well, not until it’s abandoned and rendered useless."
Hey Mat, you always seem to back the good Kickstarters. Do you have a specific process for finding the good ones, or do you just back a lot of them and get lucky sometimes? When I look at Kickstarter, there just seems to be a lot of mediocre things not worth backing.
It is about 99.8% trash and I’ve lost more money on things than I’d like to add up. However the ones that I have backed successfully have been recommended to me because they’re something in my wheelhouse. Boomboxes and projectors were the most recent ones. I can’t remember how I came to find out about these but I definitely didn’t do it by going onto Kickstarter, the product came to me first.
“ Apparently a lot of people contacted Bumpboxx to ask when they were going to ‘send Techmoan a BB-777’”. The Techmoan Army will always do what they can to support our Commander-in-Chief. 😁
Feeling much better about my purchase after this video. Thanks
• The people at BumpBoxx should be very proud to have you as a collaborator for the finished product. It'll be interesting to see how the production model turns out. As it is now it's not too bad. I'm notably impressed with the cassette function (despite no auto-reverse - companies may never implement those again 😕). • No slot for an 8-track cartridge? I'm disgruntled. 😑 • I like the camera shot at 23:01, it's cool cinematography. • Solid Gold 💛 31:10 the smooth rich rap of a tech reviewer. • I thought the sounds of birds in the garden made the music sound even better. 😄 • 30 Dec 2047 - mmm, yes, it's quite time travel-ly. This one's the bump-bomb! Nicely done video and thoroughly complete review. I hope it's what everyone was dreaming that it would be. Take care 🤍
There is one tape mech that seems to support touch controls and auto reverse, or at least there was until quite recently, but it may have gone already. We’re witnessing the end of the tape era in realtime, or more like it already happened when we were looking the other way. However it’s nice to know that MP3 made it to 2047.
It would be nice if they use a more liquid crystal / dotted font on the display screen - not fond of the serif / Times style font. I don't know if it's just the way it's sounding on the video but there sounds like a not a lot of top on it and quite a lot of middle. Ah you've just spoken about that - it might be just your preference and the way it comes over on the audio. A nice looking bit of kit.
There's only one thing i'd add to the video - A size comparison between it and the GF-777.
That’ll have to wait as they’re not both here, however it’s also not a replica where that would be more important, it’s just a big old thing, big enough for anyone.
Thanks Mat, for taking the time and the effort to this review. That has some testing on that unit. Excellent review good they are are making changes you requested. Looking forward to the final review when the final version comes. Just to add When I heard the birds chirping. I had to stop the video to see was the sound of birds coming from the back of the garden 😂
Wow! Seems like a first - being able to give feedback to a manufacturer that they actually take action on. This bodes well for the company AND the eventual product they'll be shipping out. All thanks to Techmoan!
You're the antithesis of a shill. I trust you more than some people I have know my whole existence.
YOU? A shill. Never, Mat. NEVER!