Altec sound alikes

[bfish]

Originally posted by Old Guy:
Bfish and I are probably the two people left on the planet who remember McGee Radio.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm getting grey, but I ain't that freakin' old!

I think McGee may have cut way back on their mailings in the last years, but the Hyatt disaster was in '81, so they were open that long...barely. What I liked best was the lack of store brands, you always knew what you were getting.

Micheal Gatt (a Laffayette descendant) used to have a neat site with Lafayette tidbits, but it's gone now too. For a time, (~'35-45) Lafayette was simultaniously called Wholesale Radio Co.

One of my "in the wings" projects is a 1939 Lafayette "Broadcast Studio Control Panel Amplifier", a mixer/4x6L6 PP tank that oozes cool when the panel lights up. Still looking for the licensed WE schematic for it. Starting to look like it may have been a hybrid.

Bfish- I think there was another supplier I loved out that way- BA, which I think stood for Burstein-Applebee?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">All I remember of them were their AM radio ads, done by the same guy that yelled "SUNDAY...SUNDAY, at Kansas City International Speedway...BE THERE!" Always had the impression they tried to exude high end, so I never went there. Looking back at the catalogs doesn't give that impression though. I think they were more consumer finished goods than parts and DIY stuff (which meant high end for me). Kind of an early Best Buy without the WalMart approach.

[bowtie427ss]

I foggily remeber McGee, for a teenage speaker building tinkerer those catalogs were the best!

I probably discovered them in time for the last catalogs, i remember them being on stock very similar to newspaper. There was definitely a period of time where it was the ultimate wishbook for me.

I don't ever remember another supplier offering such a variety of goodies. For us "kids" with limited budgets they had an awesome selection of budget raw speakers from some now long gone names like Herald, Becker, Oaktron, Heppner, Utah just to name a few.

[bfish]

Till I moved to the big city, mail order catalogs were my link to civilization...(well, there WAS Ed Sullivan in B&W once a week)...Once the new catalogs came, the old ones went to the outhouse for final review and disposition. I jokingly wondered about TP having value in another thread, wish we'd have had some back then and I had all those catalogs now...

[Old Guy]

My only experience with BA was their catalog. It was mostly parts, very similar to Lafayette, had some audio gear. This would have been much earlier than you are talking about BTW- late 60's.

I dealt with them up thru the 70's. It may have been early 80's when the phone went off.

They had a neat toy called a Gozinta. Screwed onto a pot after removing the knob. It created enough pressure to shoot pot cleaner in AROUND the shaft- thus eliminating the need to dismantle items to clean the pots. Wish I could find a supply or find one to clone- it was worth it's weight in gold. Any idea how many hollow body electrics need the pots cleaned cause it's so difficult?

Anyway, my version of the Lafayette story was a bit off- I thought Lafayette expanded nationwide, turns out it was only around here. they did have 100 or so stores at their heyday. Seems like government regs killed another business...