Who can remember listening with friends to Mortal combat song, and the unintelligible words:
Test your might, Mortal combat, sounded like : whowwoodtlungtodwwoooo (mortal combat) tksssssss yuourrrrr migshhhhht (test your might).
Test your might, Mortal combat, sounded like : whowwoodtlungtodwwoooo (mortal combat) tksssssss yuourrrrr migshhhhht (test your might).
Nope. 🙂
Sure does. You had to walk (very quickly) thru the stereo/video dept. to get to the record/CD dept. 😉
jeff
In the 70s, 80s and 90s the Radio Shack in my home town had an agreement with Tandy Corporation that allowed them a portion of sales that were not purchased through the catalog franchise. Yup, my local Radio Shack was a licensed dealer for Panasonic/Technics. They stocked it and sold tons of it.
Pacific Stereo ruled back in it's day.
I knew,of a,few guys that became millionaires working Radio Shack in the late 70s early 80s. The commissions were impressive, sales were solid and the employee stock options were amazing. The put all their fat commission checks into stock options.
I knew,of a,few guys that became millionaires working Radio Shack in the late 70s early 80s. The commissions were impressive, sales were solid and the employee stock options were amazing. The put all their fat commission checks into stock options.
Technics sounded 'decent' by that era standards. I remember huge systems at my friends which sounded very poor.
Huge loudspeakers with tiny bass. At home I had an 'hifi' 3000 Telefunken with upgraded WHD loudspeakers (8. some inches woofer 3ways) which I tested years ago and have a very bad XO, which was only acceptable with the 3000 receiver bass boosted etc. Always sounded so bad!
Huge loudspeakers with tiny bass. At home I had an 'hifi' 3000 Telefunken with upgraded WHD loudspeakers (8. some inches woofer 3ways) which I tested years ago and have a very bad XO, which was only acceptable with the 3000 receiver bass boosted etc. Always sounded so bad!
I ran the service department at the #1 Olson Electronics store in the country for a couple years in 1971 and 72. We sold AR speakers and their receiver, Dual and Garrard turntables, Fisher receivers and speakers, and of course the Olson branded junk. Radio Shack and Lafayette Radio Electronics also had physical stores in south Florida. I think Olson died first, then Lafayette, but both came within a few years of each other in the 80's. There are still a few Radio Shack stores around. I have no idea what they sell as I haven't been in one in years. The Shack store here in small town West Virginia closed down about 8 years ago when Sprint tried to convert them into a phone store, but Sprint had no cell coverage in this area.
There was Sound Advice, Luskins, Tweeter Etcetera which were mostly audio, or all audio. The Heathkit Stores sold "professionally assembled" versions of some of their kits. I got my Sony car CD player at Sound Advice in the 80's. It was an early model that did not have any built in amps, only RCA outs. I used a Radio Shack car amp with RCA inputs. Sound Advice was around for a few years after I got it.
There were the catalog showrooms like Luria's and Service Merchandise. I got my Technics SL-D2 turntable at one of them in 1978 (still use it), but I don't remember which one.
There were the "big box" stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, Brands Mart, and a few others. All were "discounters." There were some "high end" stores like Hi Fi Associates, but they were likely local to Florida, list price plus kind of pricing. Oddly HiFi Associates had a large collection of grill cloth, but did not cater to DIYers. They did do custom in wall installations though. Grill cloth was the only thing I ever bought there.
I bought a replacement for the Sony CD player at Circuit City in the late 90's, but they refused to sell it to me unless they installed it. I needed a CD player with RCA outputs which is not common in the car stereo world, but Circuit City had one. I cruised into their install bay in my Dodge Shadow convertible with the top down and Metallica blasting at full tilt from the Radio Shack branded "100 watt amplifier," dropped off the car and went to lunch in a friend's car. We pulled back into their install bay just in time to see a large cloud of smoke rising from the interior of my car. I ran over to the car and told their "expert" installer to get out of my car. He went screaming for his boss while I ripped my 6 foot long dual RCA cable out while it was on fire. The amp was under the front seat and the cable ran alongside the center console up to the in dash CD player. Somehow the "expert" had connected a ground wire up to the red wire that came from the under dash fuse panel to the ground on the new player and I had the amp grounded to the metal seat frame. I hooked up the CD player correctly and had Metallica playing once again when "expert" returned with his boss claiming that my amp blew up the CD player. I then asked, "If that's the case, how it the pair playing now?" Rather than making a lot of noise, I asked for the receipt with the validated warranty card and my old Sony, and left, never to return again. That combo was still cranking when I traded the car in about 5 years later, though I kept the JBLs which were replaced with some Radio Shack junk.
I don't know how many of these stores / chains lived into the 1990's.
There was Sound Advice, Luskins, Tweeter Etcetera which were mostly audio, or all audio. The Heathkit Stores sold "professionally assembled" versions of some of their kits. I got my Sony car CD player at Sound Advice in the 80's. It was an early model that did not have any built in amps, only RCA outs. I used a Radio Shack car amp with RCA inputs. Sound Advice was around for a few years after I got it.
There were the catalog showrooms like Luria's and Service Merchandise. I got my Technics SL-D2 turntable at one of them in 1978 (still use it), but I don't remember which one.
There were the "big box" stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, Brands Mart, and a few others. All were "discounters." There were some "high end" stores like Hi Fi Associates, but they were likely local to Florida, list price plus kind of pricing. Oddly HiFi Associates had a large collection of grill cloth, but did not cater to DIYers. They did do custom in wall installations though. Grill cloth was the only thing I ever bought there.
I bought a replacement for the Sony CD player at Circuit City in the late 90's, but they refused to sell it to me unless they installed it. I needed a CD player with RCA outputs which is not common in the car stereo world, but Circuit City had one. I cruised into their install bay in my Dodge Shadow convertible with the top down and Metallica blasting at full tilt from the Radio Shack branded "100 watt amplifier," dropped off the car and went to lunch in a friend's car. We pulled back into their install bay just in time to see a large cloud of smoke rising from the interior of my car. I ran over to the car and told their "expert" installer to get out of my car. He went screaming for his boss while I ripped my 6 foot long dual RCA cable out while it was on fire. The amp was under the front seat and the cable ran alongside the center console up to the in dash CD player. Somehow the "expert" had connected a ground wire up to the red wire that came from the under dash fuse panel to the ground on the new player and I had the amp grounded to the metal seat frame. I hooked up the CD player correctly and had Metallica playing once again when "expert" returned with his boss claiming that my amp blew up the CD player. I then asked, "If that's the case, how it the pair playing now?" Rather than making a lot of noise, I asked for the receipt with the validated warranty card and my old Sony, and left, never to return again. That combo was still cranking when I traded the car in about 5 years later, though I kept the JBLs which were replaced with some Radio Shack junk.
I don't know how many of these stores / chains lived into the 1990's.
I remember another one from the 80's, a huge company called Speakers Plus. Based in White Rock, BC, Canada. I was the District Manager for Central Surrey.
We had two stores. 🙂
We had two stores. 🙂
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I bought speakers from Pacific Stereo's Mountain View store at 391 San Antonio Road.
The address is significant because that very building previously housed Shockley Semiconductor, the first semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. William Shockley was one of the 3 Bell Labs scientists who won a Nobel Prize for inventing the transistor. Then "the tratiorous eight" (link) quit Shockley en masse, and founded Fairchild. Shockley's company sputtered out and vanished.
The address is significant because that very building previously housed Shockley Semiconductor, the first semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. William Shockley was one of the 3 Bell Labs scientists who won a Nobel Prize for inventing the transistor. Then "the tratiorous eight" (link) quit Shockley en masse, and founded Fairchild. Shockley's company sputtered out and vanished.
Don't remember names of the chains selling those. I know I got my first components around 1986. Selected them a bit instead of going for a complete chain. Started with a Kenwood amp and speakers and a Pioneer pickup. That pickup, a PL-640 still is used today. Next added a Philips CD150. First as a cd player, later adding a Crystal semiconductor DAC demo board and running it as a cd transport.
Happy memories. That cd player would play anything you threw at it. You could slap it, it wouldn't miss a single note. The remote control was very basic but it worked whatever way you pointed it in the room. When it started to behave erratically it was replaced by a Meridian 500. Nice stuff but it started to skip when playing way sooner than the humble Philips. It is defective now but I just can't separate from that Meridian, so pretty.
Happy memories. That cd player would play anything you threw at it. You could slap it, it wouldn't miss a single note. The remote control was very basic but it worked whatever way you pointed it in the room. When it started to behave erratically it was replaced by a Meridian 500. Nice stuff but it started to skip when playing way sooner than the humble Philips. It is defective now but I just can't separate from that Meridian, so pretty.
Mission electronics, and NAD, two companies that gave great value to their customers. I recall listening to mission speakers driven an NAD integrated amp. How good they sounded for the price was tough to top.