Did Altec inspire Radio Shack???

[scharron]

Hi Guys,
this tread is bringing back great memories. early 70's around where I grew up, Jensen was synonomous with 6x9 coax. you said Jensen, you meant 6x9 coax's and then triaxs. I had several sets. 20 oz mags and pretty good sound. foam rot and all! also started going to hi fi shows in the DC area then. I do miss those shows. not sure what year, mid seventys,
Cerwin Vega was rolling with the earthquake thing, well they had a very large room at a hotel in Arlington set up with just four speakers, one in each corner. S1's or 2 I believe.
they played Al Stewarts," Year of the Cat" and it was the most amazing sound I had ever heard. best sound at the show. I ended up with a smaller pair of CVs as it was all I could afford. Dynaco had set up two stacks of A25's, six or eight per stack, and that too, sounded really good! Custom Hi-fi, Dixie Hi Fi, Meyer Emco, Warehouse Sound, lots of stores were represented, and it was just before some company named Circuit City single handedly destroyed the Hi-Fi store concept. and I worked for them in the mid 80's. not the best time in my life I assure you. I spent many afternoons as a kid at a place called Allied Radio Shack, just dreaming of all the sound gear I would have someday, and we had a little Mom and Pop close to the house called TV Workshop that sold raw drivers and some Pioneer and KLH stuff also. I wore out many radio shack [book sized!] catalogs back then.
Late one summer afternoon there was talk of a party at a good friends house[ his parents were out of town!] Literally a half mile away as the crow flies across the woods, all of a sudden at my house you could hear really clear rock and roll, so we jumped in the car and headed over. sitting in the back yard was his dads monster Sansui Receiver, a reel to reel, and a large gray set of... you guessed it, Altec A7 Voice of the Theaters! It sound great! I think about two hundred people showed up and the police also came several times to have the volume lowered. Amazingly, no one got killed, no fights, fair amount of beer got consumed and
nothing blew up! A great memory from my childhood.
thanks for stirring up some old memories
scott in nc

[Russnohio]

Hi Guys,
this tread is bringing back great memories. thanks for stirring up some old memories
scott in nc

Hi Scott!

I too used to read and re-read Radio Shack catalogs all the time as a kid. Went into the stores all the time as well.
Once I began reading "Stereo Review"..."High Fidelity" and other such magazines however, I then discovered a whole new world, and so I then left RS behind and never looked back. (I must confess)

I too have vivid memories of my own youth. I constantly haunted stores like: "Tokyo Shapiro"...."Audio Warehouse"...."Winter radio"...."B&B Appliance"....and on & on. Just visiting record stores back then spurred it on even more.
I remember back in the '70's lots of the record & tapes stores usually had really nice audio systems set-up & running. In Coventry Village here in Ohio there was a record store called: "Record Rendezvous". In the back was a pair of Altec (A-7's I think)....always playing while shoppers browsed.
Also maybe other Ohioans recall "Peaches Records & Tapes". Not sure if they were a national chain. They had an array of JBL speakers all along the ceiling being run from a Phase-Linear amp/pre amp. Records spun on a Empire turntable.

Now-a-days you go into a "home entertainment" store all you see (and HEAR) are massive arrays of flat-screen hi-def TV's.......all running the same movie.

Interesting is it not?.....that over the years television technology has vastly improved while pure audio sound quality has not at all. Oh sure...we have all that silly (to me) 5,6,7..channel "home theatre" stuff you can play with now......some of it CAN sound quite good.....but as far as gears ability to re-produce sound, notably loudspeakers.....the technology peaked in the late '70's. Sometimes I feel kids today.....kids into audio that is...missed out on something special. I'm glad I was born at the right time to be able to experience the golden age of home audio. Even if I could'nt afford buying it......sampling the "magic" was almost as good!

Memories indeed!
Russ

[Old Guy]

Altecs + Amp + Youth=Eviction notice! (Smiley HERE)*


*For the life of me......I still cannot figure out how to insert a smilely into text! When I try it....it goes up onto the top of page only(!?)
(See what I mean?.......another smiley HERE!)

Russ

Make sure your cursor is where you want the Smiley...and that you use the smilies rather than the post icons...those go in the header:

Then just click the one you want.

[gortnipper]

Also maybe other Ohioans recall "Peaches Records & Tapes". Not sure if they were a national chain. They had an array of JBL speakers all along the ceiling being run from a Phase-Linear amp/pre amp. Records spun on a Empire turntable.

We had a couple of Peaches stores in Seattle in the 70s/early 80s. I still have one of their wooden "crates" that I kept my LPs in when in HS and at the UW. Now I just use it to hold the LPs when I move house.

David

[Old Guy]

Apparently even Sony made a competitor for the Mach One.

But my only reaction is OMG.....

1970s SONY SPEAKERS Rare

Seem to be of the "Totem Pole" school of thought.

I think BTW I figured out why it was bad to be low man on the Totem pole...the Indians had dogs...so if you were on the bottom you wanted to have a son quickly....

[oface1]

oh man OG, those sony's look horrendous.....ugghhh...


-chris

[Russnohio]

oh man OG, those sony's look horrendous.....ugghhh...


-chris

Likely sound horrendous as well. Jeez, do I count 7 drivers per cabinet? Would'nt be suprised if those two little horns are non-operative for looks only. Lots of speaker makers did just that after all.

I remember a cheap little speaker I saw once (Panasonic I think) where it had a plastic-molded sectoral horn on the front which was actually the bass-port disguised as a "horn-tweeter".

Russ

[Panomaniac]

LOL! I had to save that photo. Looks like Sony went to the Bozak school of speaker design. How many drivers can you stick on a baffle?

[Old Guy]

That Sony just screams "Disco!"

There was a set of Lafayette's answer to the Mach Ones on craigslist here but they have apparently sold. Look a little better thought out than the Sony...but anything would.

[Altec Best]

That Sony just screams "Disco!"

Also screams bell bottom pants with platform shoes "LOL"