1973

[soundminded]

1959 technology;

http://cgi.ebay.com/LAFAYETTE-KT600-pre-am...=item1c0dcf8a21

Available as both a kit and factory assembled. There was a matching 60 wpc tube amplifier with monster transformers too. Prices were very reasonable.

This looks like the TOTL Lafayette Radio version of the Setton Receiver built in the then new automated Fisher Plant in Japan in the early 1980s. If it is, this is a very good price for it IMO.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Lafayette-LR-9090-AM-F...=item5ad4d107c2

[jwjensen356]

This thread is definetely a trip down memory lane. My recollection was going to the original Radio Shack store in Boston in the mid-late 50s and seeing the original Realist (Realistic?) FM tuner at $39.95. I bought one, a hot performer, but later replaced by my National Criterion FM-AM tuner (able to pull in WQXR-NY from Boston). There was also a Layfayette store near-by where I got a Japanese tone arm (silicone damped) that was a knock-off of the Gray tone arm. About 1958 I bought at the Radio Shack Washington Street store numerous components for the Williamson amps that I am still using, (USN WWII surplus oil-filled 600V capacitors at $0.50 each; RCA 630 TV chassis HV transformers, able to handle 30 tubes in the TV, at $1.00 each). Lots of goodies were then available. I spent many hours at the Listening Post on Newbury Street, drooling over the Dynaco Mk IIs (eventually to be replaced in my mind with the Williamsons I built). And the Boston High Fidelity shows were very good ( I compared them with the one New York High Fidelity show I went to).

Thise were good times. I wish I had the money then to buy more but I was just a poor student at the time.

John

Allied Radio was my favorite place growing up as a kid in Chicago. ( And if I had any spare time left, a huge Olson Radio store was right across the street.) Huge selection of name brand gear along with their own Allied and Knight house brands. The Allied catalog designs and layouts were so similar to Lafayette and Radio Shack, I have to wonder if there wasn't one advertising firm that made them up for all of these places. I don't know if this has been posted before, but here's a site that's a real walk down memory lane. Warning: click on this only when you've got some spare time on your hands:

Radio Shack Catalogs

[genek]

The electronics/audio haven of my childhood was NYC's Radio Row. My dad and I used to consume entire weekend days wandering up and down the 50 or so electonics, audio and surplus shops on Cortlandt St. Dad built numerous projects using cabinetry from Kantor the Cabinet King, and I inherited my 1962 AR TT turntable from an uncle who bought from the first shipment delivered to Leonard Radio.

It all ended in 1965-66, when the area was taken by the Port Authority to build the WTC. I've never seen anything since, anywhere, that compares.

[Carlspeak]

I've never been to Courtlandt St. in NYC but I have been to Akihabara in Tokyo - pretty amazing, but obviously not the same either.

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3003.html

[kkantor]

I've never been to Courtlandt St. in NYC but I have been to Akihabara in Tokyo - pretty amazing, but obviously not the same either.

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3003.html

Canal St. was my era. Akihabara is still cool, but I think Ground Zero these days is ShenZhen. And, like Akihabara in its prime, it's not just a market for finished goods. You can bring a sample of something you want in the morning, like a PCB or a tooled part, even a cellphone, and have copies in 24 hours.

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/shenzhen

http://www.bunniestudios.com/wordpress/?p=147

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/25/unima...ly-giganti.html

-k