Did Radio Shack make/sell any GREAT speakers?

NH-MAN said:
sounds good check
Good value check
some great veneer check

Guess my standards are different but if all three boxes are checked thats a great product.

As far as comparing sound that is like asking people which is the best car.

Lots of "Great" speakers touted on AK I found rather boring or meh.
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The "great" car debate is a perfect description. I think a Corolla is a great car because it gives great service for hundreds of thousands of reliable service. I dont like them that much because they drive so boring but I sure understand why they have sold a zillion of them. But many would say a super expensive and unreliable exotic car that costs 100 times as much and needs 10 times the service is a much better car than the Corolla.

Definitions are the key words.
 
This entire thread is opinionated. If you ask for an opinion that is exactly what you will get. Nobody here is wrong, they just have different tastes and listening preferences.

Although I do admire some of the cabinets that housed the mid fi speakers, I don't really enjoy listening to them. I would probably buy a set if I came across a good deal just for the cabinets. Then I would replace the drivers to make them acoustically pleasing to me to go along with the aesthetics.
 
Voltage_Drop said:
This entire thread is opinionated. If you ask for an opinion that is exactly what you will get. Nobody here is wrong, they just have different tastes and listening preferences.

Although I do admire some of the cabinets that housed the mid fi speakers, I don't really enjoy listening to them. I would probably buy a set if I came across a good deal just for the cabinets. Then I would replace the drivers to make them acoustically pleasing to me to go along with the aesthetics.
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Actually one's opinion can be informed, or not informed. If, like I said before, one had never heard any of the better units OR not heard them in like new condition with fresh caps, then one's opinion on the subject is worth more consideration than someone who has less experience.

If one talks about Toyotas and the only Toyota one has driven is a 30 year old Corolla then that opinion is not that informed.

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Guest151 said:
My Nova 6s are up against the wall and I think they sound fantastic so much so that I have purchased 2 more sets in the past couple of weeks. I can only imagine what the results of a recap will be.
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The bass wont change much but the highs just might. They are such a surprise for a small 8in two way speaker. Next to the 7B they are my favorite RS speaker.
 
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NH-MAN said:
If you put aside the forward mid on the Mach one and concentrate on what the tweeter is doing, I have found the tweeter on the Mach One to be one of my all time favorites . It was a shame the forward mid driver over shadowed it. The detail in that tweeter was amazing.
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I heard the mach ones way back when, playing that heartbeat thing on Dark side of the moon, "Speak to me" It was cranked way up with the 10 band equalizer 32hz band full up and on that really big old Radio shack receiver with the power meters.

It literally shook the ENTIRE store. Still to this day, amazed at what they could do, (at least when equalized) but how powerful and strong they were!
 
Opinions,opinions.opinions,they are all great Myself bought from RS right from the start many times over their first 25 yrs!
Still use their 1975-76 Mach Ones albeit slightly modified powered by their Tank STA-2300 and an ADC EQ (no smiley face here) .It works for me for all matter of Music and that's all that counts in the end isn't it?:)
 
Voltage_Drop said:
This entire thread is opinionated. If you ask for an opinion that is exactly what you will get. Nobody here is wrong, they just have different tastes and listening preferences.

Although I do admire some of the cabinets that housed the mid fi speakers, I don't really enjoy listening to them. I would probably buy a set if I came across a good deal just for the cabinets. Then I would replace the drivers to make them acoustically pleasing to me to go along with the aesthetics.
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Looking back decades later, I realized one huge thing. Radio shack occupied an odd category of value/performance.

For sure better than all the entry level crap, and most low priced stuff you found at Sears, Kmart, and department stores, but not quite in the audiophile mid priced stuff either, but more along the lines of an older fashioned, well built, fairly good sounding, but still low priced speaker.

I am not sure even looking back, they had any true competition. The big rack systems and Bookshelf stereos did not compare, neither did the true audiophile stuff.
 
Bodyblue said:
The "great" car debate is a perfect description. I think a Corolla is a great car because it gives great service for hundreds of thousands of reliable service. I dont like them that much because they drive so boring but I sure understand why they have sold a zillion of them. But many would say a super expensive and unreliable exotic car that costs 100 times as much and needs 10 times the service is a much better car than the Corolla.

Definitions are the key words.
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The question is how do you define great. A car owner may have one set of criteria they measure a vehicle by, an engineer could have a different set, a professional driver a different set again, and of course a mechanic would see it different, while we are at it an auto dealer would define this differently. Just because one thinks its great, another may not.
 
Mister Pig said:
The question is how do you define great. A car owner may have one set of criteria they measure a vehicle by, an engineer could have a different set, a professional driver a different set again, and of course a mechanic would see it different, while we are at it an auto dealer would define this differently. Just because one thinks its great, another may not.
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This opinion is good but also applies to just about anything consumers have bought and will ever buy:)
 
Mister Pig said:
There is no RS design team. No manufacturing facilities. They contracted out and had them produced under their name.
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If @Tecexec is to be believed, your statement isn't (or wasn't) quite true.

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...realistic-speakers.155562/page-5#post-2974865

"I was the designer of most US made systems from 1977 to 1990. There were two major manufactures: Sunwood (from Asia) and Tandy Speakers. While Sunwood did have better cabinets (finish-wise) and attention to details, the US made speakers from Tandy Speakers were always superior in sound and acoustical replication. It's difficult separate the wheat from the shaft. The T-100 was design by me but built by Sunwood. Really outstanding speakers were the Optimus 10, Optimus-23, T-70 and T-300. I tried to change the philosophy of the closed box designs to the higher efficiency and greater bandwidth of tuned system (second order and greater). Just for the record."​

For what it's worth, I do like some Realistic speakers. I think I said this before, but the ones I have are good to very good, but I wouldn't categorize any of them as 'great'. Still, my opinion is that you can listen to them all day long without getting fatigued (esp. Optimus-1s, Optimus-5s, Nova-7s, Nova-8s, and each of their B variants). Just a good, enjoyable sound, but probably not for the critical listener.
 
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Bodyblue said:
Well this thread says differently. I knew RS told speaker makers what they wanted at what price point.....but this is interesting.

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...realistic-speakers.155562/page-5#post-2974865
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Its fascinating, I never came across any other info on RS designs on any number of searches. Never had a search turn up those posts by Tecexec. Looks like he made a total of 5 posts with really cool info in it, and has never posted since 2015. For speakers it seems to show that they used Sunwood, then had their own operation, and then later bought O'Sullivan. He also says they have used knock off drivers for profitability. But neat stuff to read, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Shame there is not info out there that expands on this.
 
Mister Pig said:
Its fascinating, I never came across any other info on RS designs on any number of searches. Never had a search turn up those posts by Tecexec. Looks like he made a total of 5 posts with really cool info in it, and has never posted since 2015. For speakers it seems to show that they used Sunwood, then had their own operation, and then later bought O'Sullivan. He also says they have used knock off drivers for profitability. But neat stuff to read, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Shame there is not info out there that expands on this.
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Yup! I knew a lot of the drivers from the early models were sourced from Fostex but not much else about them. I also like that I learned he kept the crossover simple by design, not for price reasons, but because that is what he thought they should be. They used rather cheap caps that usually need replacement 40 years later but the design was fine. Sometimes less is more.
 
People regularly speak on here about the synergy between components and how they interact together. I read an article once long time ago from a man who was an engineer for RS and he described how the systems you saw packaged together in the catalogue's were actually "designed" purposely to work well together.
 
Bodyblue said:
I knew a lot of the drivers from the early models were sourced from Fostex but not much else about them.
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Foster Electric Co., actually. They still make speakers and headphones for Sennheiser, Sony, Yamaha, and Denon.

Back in the day, they made most of the drivers for Akai speakers as well as RS.

Foster started Fostex in 1973 to sell speakers direct to the consumer.

Foster also made some of the vintage RS receivers and other audio electronics.
 
NH-MAN said:
People regularly speak on here about the synergy between components and how they interact together. I read an article once long time ago from a man who was an engineer for RS and he described how the systems you saw packaged together in the catalogue's were actually "designed" purposely to work well together.
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I believe it. So many times over the years there have been posters who assume that RS was run by a bunch dummies that sold batteries and headphones........in reality it was run by a bunch of smart people that did their best to compete in one of the most cutthroat industries ever at the time. Very few of the big names they competed against actually exist in the same form today as they did then. RS and their engineers and marketing people did not simply slap their name on some cheap Chinese **** like so many do today. They worked their ass off on items to actually compete with the big boys. Some times they missed and some times they came up with some great items. But they tried as hard as they could within their capabilities and budgets......just like the big guys did. To equate ultimate failure with lack of smarts and effort is very very ignorant.
 
bowtie427ss said:
Foster Electric Co., actually. They still make speakers and headphones for Sennheiser, Sony, Yamaha, and Denon.

Back in the day, they made most of the drivers for Akai speakers as well as RS.

Foster started Fostex in 1973 to sell speakers direct to the consumer.

Foster also made some of the vintage RS receivers and other audio electronics.
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Yep, you are right....I always get Foster and Fostex confused.
 
I really love my Mach Threes, have had them for just over a year. Refoamed last Thanksgiving, and recapped with Clarity CSAs around New Years. They’re a very “honest” speaker, and can be too much on some poorly recorded tracks (female vocals with sibilance, for example). Likely just the nature of horns though, as they’re the first true compression horn speakers I’ve owned.

I’ve always loved RS speakers, my Dad had two pair of Optimus 1000s (stacked) when I was a kid. They were also a 15” 3-way, from the late ‘80s and had white cones. They were probably my favorites, and had great midrange and vocal realism. They ran the 15” woofer full range, not sure if that contributed to the unique sound or not.

Joe
 
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