Sony FH-7 The best gets better

I use the speakers from this system all the time. (but matched with a Rotel mini system) It's an awesome combo!

Not sure if this is the place to suggest, but would love to see you get/review one of these laser/"no contact" turntables: https://www.elpj.com/

I packed my FH-15R back into its box many years ago with the intention of selling it, but it's still stashed away in the garage. I still have the matching Sony turntable plugged into my old Pioneer cartridge CD HiFi stack, but since I had that, I couldn't justify buying the matching FH series CD player despite the temptation. After watching your video, I now have the urge to unpack the FH-15R and find some space for it, using it as my only working cassette player after the Pioneer's tape mechanism failed due plastic degradation. That's assuming the Sony's cassette player hasn't suffered the same.

Were you planning to delay the release on this one until tomorrow, or are my brain wheels not cogging?

I love the fh series, I have been piecing together an fh77 with the 3way apm speakers and it's such a cool looking system. It has the spectrum analyzer which is a great edition, released a bit later in 87ish? Great video 🙌🙏

I quite like the looks of this Technics SC-HD505 system. With the shockingly purple light show: https://www.ebay.com/itm/115834390227?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=tfpROjGVQiS&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=v3hsQQy-RYG&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

This component system needs one more component so it will be an even six in two stacks of three. I might be obsessive.

The curse of this Sony is that I love everything about it except everything related to using it for its intended purpose. I hope this isn't just Gen-X nostalgia talking, but this is just such an exciting, intriguing, and even pretty piece of industrial design and analog user interface. Sony needs to be praised for that. If you know how to work one component, you know how to work any other component. It's a beautiful object. The design makes sense whether it's stacked together as a boombox, or separated as side-by-side stacks on a shelf with separation between the speakers. This belongs in the Victoria & Albert museum. And it kills me a little bit that all of the leaps and bounds that home stereo has made in the 21st century lands us at components whose entire UI is on a phone or a TV, and consequently to components that boast of how invisible they are in a room. My video and audio library lives on a black box in my office. My speakers are small, efficient, and anonymous wireless boxes dotted here and there. Even on The Good HiFi In The Living Room, the box that streams music from the office NAS to the Denon receiver and the bookshelf speakers is hidden away and its sole UI is a stripe of LEDs that tells me that it's connected and working. But other than that, it's nothing but upside. Sound quality is light years ahead. Storing my music and video as files on a shoebox means that I no longer clutter up half the room with discs and tapes, and I dive way deeper into my collection today than I ever did when it was on me to keep my physical media shelved, organized, and accessible. I got my personal Grail Boombox a year or two ago (General Electric 3-5280C; something about the design of it just clicks with me). I've made and played some tapes on it. But mostly it's been just decorative. I've considered sourcing a second one and performing some 21st century upgrades: a Bluetooth input and modern Lithium batteries plus a recharging circuit. Maybe even a discreet OLED display and a couple of period-correct pushbuttons, to control streaming. It's very doable. Nonetheless, these ideas never go very far. They always dead-end at the knowledge that the result will be (1) cool, and (2) not sound half as good as modern Bluetooth speaker than I can buy for the cost of those parts. Still: damn, that Sony looks cool. How odd that back when it was made, the history of home HiFi was "the more buttons and lights and meters and Stuff on it, the higher the prestige." I imagine that this is why the big flex today is on how ridiculously over-engineered your turntable is. It's the only thing these Hyacinth Buckets of Home Audio have left...

Interesting video as always! Hope you’re doing great!

Is that the Dankpods “headphone testing” jazz music I hear 😀

Lovely little system, I could only dream about such a system as a teenager back then. I think my first full system was from Radio Rentals and was Hitachi or Kenwood or something like that. Lots of black!

I'm surprised at how many obvious design flaws there are in the FH-7 series, such as the aux input position and top-loading CD player. That's not to take away from how cool this system is as a concept, but I'm surprised that a manufacturer with Sony's experience would make such silly errors (especially the aux port... that's inexcusable IMHO).

I guess the main issue with having the record player and CD player is that they're both top load so you can't have a single stack.

It's reassuring to see most of your records have a slight wobble, as it's something that's drawn to my attention more so with the Sound Burger. I've been told that rarely any record is completely flat anyway!

Another video on this thing to flare up my eBay wants... dangit. Since you covered the Technics SL-DZ1200, have you considered covering any more 'professional' audio production gear like that? I think with your pretty extensive knowledge of old school hip hop, it might be fun to see your take on the old Boss SP samplers - since they're targeted at the amateur market they're almost straddling the line between toy and actual gear, but they've been used by so many greats (J Dilla...) to make a lot of iconic tracks.

The battery power module may have been useful for those prone to power cuts as I remember the power going out regularly during my childhood in the 1980s, especially during storms. Then again, installing the battery module would have been rather awkward in candlelight and I can just imagine finally getting that last screw in only for the lights to come back on!

I used to have the FH10w, which was the model with a twin cassette deck. I bought it in 1986. Lovely bit of kit.

An energy-saving mode on a bookshelf system, in the mid-eighties! That was forward-thinking. Although I'm a bit surprised that the LED indicators would make such a difference with as many as 12 D cells. On the other hand, LEDs of that era had considerable less lm/W.

Delighted to see the return of the FH-7, it’s a beautiful thing and it makes me crave a mid-80s living room. Great video as always Mat, thanks!

You have some nice kit! Great to see it, thanks.

Am I slightly confused? The turntable has a headphones socket, so must have an RIAA preamp inside, so why does it have a phono level output, which then means the CD player can't be connected at the rear of the main unit. In fact, why does the turntable have a headphone socket at all...? It seems unlikely to be used independent of the main unit. It was the 80s! What a beautiful thing it is.

Can't wait to watch later, ever think of looking at Sherwood like you did with Kenwood?

Gosh, Mat. I’d have killed to have a CD player with all those indicator LEDs! I am embarrassed to say that the number of knobs, switches and coloured lamps was far more attractive to me back then than any nuances of audio quality. So a big Yes to that CD player, but a huge NO to the turntable - everything about that is wrong; the overhanging record, lack of controls, not even a cuing device. Just looking at it is ‘fingernails down a blackboard’ to me. Can it play different speeds or sizes of record? Great video, as always, Mat.

Because this unit has so many things going for it (cool design, good sound, portability and nostalgia value) it seems like something that would be in regular use, or at least as a back-up to the main stereo set-up in the lounge. This raises the question of whether you use the FH-7 on a somewhat regular basis? It seems a shame if it were relegated to the attic or the storage locker (naturally with all the audio gear you've likely got, many items have to be in long-term storage). Anyway, today was a great time for a new Techmoan video and now I'm off to rewatch the original FH-7 video and probably a few others.😃

You know, I really have no idea where you keep coming up with the incredible content and devices, over and over [and over!]. No wonder I have begun to seriously look forward to the videos you release, more and more. You really do deserve a break, though, I think. As usual, Just Another Excellent Video, sir!

My aunt had this CD player, I remember seething with jealousy.

This was designed so the husband could lift it and the wife could get behind it to dust :-)

You could almost call this "The BEAST gets better." For size/heft and performance, this rig seems like a world-beater.

After writing my initial comment I thought the thumbnail could reinforce the indoor/outdoor aspect by taking a photo of Bees Knees and superimpose one half of him on the indoor segment and the other half on outdoor. Not to be taken too seriously, of course.

I wonder which device holds the record for the most D-cells, this can't be far off. It does make a very attractive portable though. Nice to see the Braun/ADS Atelier CD3 I own being mentioned in High Fidelity.

• Yes, it's a thing of great beauty. It deserves its own carefully reinforced custom-built bookshelf. • Upon switching to the battery power, the first thing I noticed was the lack of red EQ indicators. • Nice (new?) hand scale device. • Ouch - I'd advise not carrying it on the shoulder. • Nice music selections during device demonstration and background accompaniment. • It's always pleasing to see previous components being utilized in video, namely the DS 35 stop-clock 🧡. • As always, your video editing is on point - I can tell there was plenty of varied footage to condense within this one (Sony Soup). Not much more to say about this one. Seeing the DS 35 reminded me to ask a question about some of the companies and products you've interacted with in the past. Have you interacted with the folks at Millclock? I know you had concerns on their circumstances in Ukraine. I have also thought about the SDS Consult folks who were refurbishing old Uher recorders (https://youtu.be/Ac3cXu27M-M) and Dead Media Tapes who were buying 8-track carts and refurbishing them to use for pre-recorded albums (https://youtu.be/f7Li03ALNG8&t=7m34s). They all have a connected theme of taking old media/tech and making it new again; I like that. Enough for now - as always, please take care 🤍

Great video Matt. Two things that come to mind: 1st, this reminds me how innovative Sony was in the 70s and 80s. I remember reading an article about them at the time where it said the engineers at Sony were challenged to come up with a new idea in their own basic market, (TV, Stereo, etc.), each month, and then would share that idea in a group meeting. It was these engineer meetings that brought about all the new technologies that Sony seem to deliver. And Sony didn't care how much extra money this program cost. 2nd, I don't think you 'whippersnappers' realize how much our stereo system meant to us in the 60s-70s-80s. I clearly remember when I was in college in the 70s and was moving several times a year, from my parents' home to my school dorm, or apartment. I gauged my residence totally on my stereo system. If my system was at my parents, then that's where I lived; if it was a school, then that was home to me. And the process of moving my 12" woofer speakers and god-awful heavy amps, etc., was the major endeavor of the move. It always practically filled my little Honda. That really is a precious memory to me. Thanks for bringing it back. ... am I the only one who watches the Patreon credits just to see whether their name's location has changed?

This makes me sad that I no longer have my FH-55W. I think that was a slightly later model than yours. The most obvious differences were that it had a double cassette deck and two tweeters on the speakers. The only place I ever saw these being sold was Boots, of which larger branches were more like department stores in those days. I remember there being an option of buying it with the CD player included but that seemed prohibitively expensive. I ended up connecting a rather mediocre Sony Discman to mine. I never really saw the point of attaching the speakers to the sides. The system was luggable as a single unit but the combined weight made it far easier to move around if you carried the speakers separately.

What a beautiful system, just a shame about that front panel CD connection... I've got a CDP-7F, was looking around for an 80s styled unit a while back and this delivered perfectly, it sits on my bedside table. Yup love the illuminated logo and dot matrix font!