Jernikfra's Onkyo XB-8(W) Pictorial

[jernikfra]

I just got back to Vancouver from my first ever trip to Japan to visit my Japanese Girlfriend I met here. Before going I did lots of research on MD micro systems, since I wanted to buy a new one as a souvenir. I settled on the Onkyo XB-8 since it was the only one I could find with a world band tuner, and it had all the features I wanted like 4 timers, optical in/out, subwoofer out and HI-MD to boot. I walked into the Yodobashi Camera in Sapporo, and browsed their large selection, but tragically no XB-8. I got my girlfriend to do the translating and asked if they carried it.To my amazement, they had a clearance on the model with glossy white speakers. Apparently Onkyo was clearing out the white colour and was only going to make it in black. My timing was spot on, they had one left new in a box for the almost unbelievable price of 19,800 Yen, or about $183 Canadian Dollar$! needless to say, I bought it on the spot, and transported it back to Canada.I got a $35 voltage transformer for it and it is working perfectly.The manual is only in Japanese, but the functions are all in English. I trying out the various features. It's got some very cool functions.The nicest one is the automatic peak search function. It analyzes the various CD's you record from, and sets the digital recording level automatically! I'm currently doing listening tests to see if it works as well as my ear at judging levels between different CD's.The only downside to all this is that it might mean all my current MD equipment will become obsolete if I convert everything to Hi-MD.

[Ishiyoshi]

Congratulations on your purchase. Would you consider writing an elaborate review?

*topic moved to "Product Reviews/Pictorials"

[Richard]

Thanks for the photos and congrats on the purchase. I own the black X-B8 and can confirm it is a fantastic little system.

[bobt]

You did well, it sometimes pays to be in the right place at the right time, and to ask a couple of questions.

Have fun

Bob

[sector001]

i love how you labeled your surge protector....

[jernikfra]

I didn't label the surge protector, it came that way.They do give you labels for your power cords though, so you can colour co-ordinate them to the plugs!

[alexis]

Well, congratulations for your new system. I got myself one recently too, bought from a friend of mine during a holiday in Tokyo. There seems to be bargain prices there too: I got a black one for 26_500 Yens at a regular store.

Looks like prices are dropping, so it may be time for us to trigger friends, relatives or colleagues to "import" these nice little machines.

By the way - does somebody happen to know a hat-trick to make the X B8 display european characters correctly (if ever possible)? This a big drawback of this unit: it does not show accented/international characters on its display.