If you were of a certain age in the 1980s, the boombox was simply part of the landscape. It sat on shoulders at the beach, anchored the corner of the park, soundtracked the street. It was communal by design, a shared experience rather than a private one, and the size of it was the point. The bigger the box, the louder the statement. Sharp, JVC, Panasonic and Sony each had their contenders, and the top of that pile was the Sharp GF-777, a twin-cassette unit that was as much furniture as it was electronics.
Then the format collapsed. The Walkman privatised listening, the Discman refined it, and the MP3 player finished the job. By…
