AR speaker sale at McGee Radio - 1975

[Guest crusty]

McGee Radio of Kansas City Missouri was a wholesaler of electronic parts and equipment and also sold home audio equipment at discount prices. They were in business from 1930 to I believe the mid 1980's.

In addition to the top products of the day, AR, KLH, Sansui, they also sold speaker drivers for the DIYer. Their catalog was full of various size woofers, midranges and tweeters from many of the popular manufacturers of the day, CTS, Eminence, Hepner and Philips Norelco, plus many more. Most all at this time were still manufactured in the USA. Occasionally they would have buyout products from stereo equipment manufacturers including amplifiers, speaker cabinets and associated parts.

In 1974 I passed through Kansas City during my vacation and stopped by the McGee store. I was surprised by what I saw. An old 3 story brick warehouse occupying perhaps half a city block. There was no show room as we have now days, just a long parts counter with lots and lots of raw speaker drivers hanging all over the walls and open top boxes the length of the order room with all sorts of woofers, tweeters and musical instrument speakers inside. Obviously behind the counter and in the warehouse was where all the other goodies were stacked, the brand new in the box AR and KLH speakers.

The McGee catalog came out every year for 45 years, each issue was a stereo equip. DIYer's favorite wishbook. The oldest copy I have is from 1969. I have always wished I could get my hands on one from the 1950's or earlier.

Chris

[kkantor]

http://reel2reeltexas.com/cat69McGee.html

There used to be a fair number of these kinds of stores around, I guess.

Remember back in like 1986, or so, when every town in the US seemed to have a clone "Computer Store" where you could buy Hercules graphics cards, Everex modems and such? Eventually, the technology becomes more consumer-friendly, and DIY is relegated to the fringe.

-k

[Guest crusty]

http://reel2reeltexas.com/cat69McGee.html

There used to be a fair number of these kinds of stores around, I guess.

Remember back in like 1986, or so, when every town in the US seemed to have a clone "Computer Store" where you could buy Hercules graphics cards, Everex modems and such? Eventually, the technology becomes more consumer-friendly, and DIY is relegated to the fringe.

-k

There were many stores or DIY parts stores that acted as wholesale outlets for audio products in those days, McGee was just one of them, but had one of the biggest catalogs for the DIYer.

But its always refreshing to see see the interest is still alive, loudspeaker restoration, folks building subwoofers for their cars or trying to build the perfect connector cables for an audio system. We are in a highly disposable era but theres always those of us who won't be satisfied unless we have a hand in making something work or making improvements. Thanks

Chris

[speaker dave]

The McGee catalog came out every year for 45 years, each issue was a stereo equip. DIYer's favorite wishbook. The oldest copy I have is from 1969. I have always wished I could get my hands on one from the 1950's or earlier.

Chris

I remember the excitement of receiving the Berstein Appleby catalog, the Dixie HiFi catalog and a few others, along with the larger Allied and Lafayette ones.

Here is a great web site for Radio Shack catalogs. A good reference for a lot of gear from multiple years.

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html

Question to the AR veterans: was availability in the discounters damaging to AR in the long run??

David

[genek]

Question to the AR veterans: was availability in the discounters damaging to AR in the long run??

One of the big reasons why I bought my 2ax's was that they were available from a discounter. From non-discounters, the only way ARs made sense was when they were paired with fairtrade-priced components you really wanted but couldn't get from a discounter.

IIRC, Ken or Tom said a while back that AR hit its peak market share during the Teledyne years (1967 to sometime in the early 90's). Fairtrade laws were repealed in 1975, so it would be interesting to know whether market share was affected when anything could be discounted by any dealer.