scamwb
Active Member
I see there are a few Audiophiles from the Buffalo area. I will write about the history of audio in Buffalo as I remember it. My first stereo came from Purchase (aka poor choice) Audio. I remember when our Miracord 50H record changer was delivered it had dust on it which I thought was odd it was odder still when it stuck halfway across the record. Our family quickly came to the conclusion they gave us the store demo and charged us for a new one. After a call to the store and some threats they brought us a new one in a sealed carton which worked for awhile and succumbed to the same malady so we gave up on it and exchanged it for an AR turntable (which is probably worth a fortune these days) anyway on to the history. There were 2 places to buy stereo in Buffalo in those days both downtown on Main Street. Purchase Stereo which was a franchise of Lafayette Radio in NYC and the was FM Sound which was where the good stuff was: McIntosh, Marantz, etc. They were really snooty there but it was where the high end was. I bought my first McIntosh there a C-26 solid state preamp which looked great but sounded tinny like many first generation transistor components did. The next generation of stores was Transcendental Audio owned by Robert Minnick on Walden Ave near Harlem it moved to Niagara Falls Blvd they had really good gear and I remember the creator of Krell Dan D'Agostino worked. I bought a lot of things there. There was Stereo Emporium on Delaware Avenue owned by Jerry Bennett and Mike Ortolani. There was another store downtown in the Elmwood Area that sold Ohm speakers (those upside down Walsh ones) which is all I remember about them. There was (and still is) the Speaker Shop on Kensington Avenue then Bailey Avenue now on Main Street near the University Plaza owned by Ed Sullivan (one of the nicest people I have ever met in the audio world). There was Stereo Advantage which advertised non stop in the paper and moved from a small store to a huge one where D&E motors (Mercury Dealer) was. There were more into TV's than Audio but they had a giant store with free lifetime service. They were big into Sony, Yamaha,Polk and other consumer names (not really into high end audio) they are still in business but more into non stereo now and in a much smaller store across the street. There is still the Stereo Chamber in Orchard Park NY owned by former FM alumnus Gerry Aroneseno. I haven't been there for at least 25 years but according to the web it's still there. Of course we have Best Buy but I wouldn't go there for any audio based on my previous experiences with them. I recall a funny story maybe 25 years ago I was at one of the defunct high end stereo stores and a customer called and a asked if they carried JVC and the salesman (who was very funny) replied "does that mean Junk Very Cheap" which at the time I thought was hysterical. I could probably go on but I will save that for future posts.
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