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Do you miss a particular audio brick-and-mortar store?

2DualsNotEnough said:
When I was stationed in England,we used to go to London all the time.There was a particular street with all the electronics shops on it.I wish I could remember where it was.I spent a lot of time there.
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Probably Tottenham Court Road. I bought my senheiser headphones there that I still have. A whole bunch of discount audio stores. :biggrin:
 
I miss the following:

Oak Ridge, TN

The Music Box (founded by Bill Pollock, founded 1942-closed ) 1984 Horace Cerutti and Hugh Nichols the last owners. Great people all, had a record store/TV and Radio shop on ground floor, HiFi on the basement. Sold at one time about every great HiFi brand there ever was.

Hyacinth Sound! A Record shop (Cheapest LP prices in Oak Ridge). First Maxell dealer for blank tapes, sold AR and Advent HiFi gear.

Knoxville, TN

The Stereo Center. Charlie Randall. Sold McIntosh, Fisher, HH Scott, and Thorens. Also sold Dual, JBL, AR, KLH, and more.
England Sound- Jimmy England sold about everything consumer or professional. Large Crown dealer.
HiFi House- My first taste of Denon and Luxman and they also introduced me to B&W, Paradigm, Energy, and more
 
Specialized Sounds, Madison, Wi. Miss them a lot (and admit partly my fault for not supporting them more in 90s).
Respectful expert/s (rare nowadays?), extremely knowledgeable, superb buying/sound advice, listening room, etc.
Forums may provide better breadth of 'opinions', but hard to beat having a local expert shop to bounce ideas off of.
:(
 
It was the Trans-Alaska Pipline years and Shimek's Audio/Anchorage was a mecca for hanging out and people spending some of that cash earned out in those camps. From McIntosh to Sherwood,the sales people spent time in helping you choose within what your budget "was"....until you walked through the door! (Everybody stretched some it seems because cash flowed like honey in those pipeline years.) Our group of guys became kind of competitive in our gear and "loud" meant a win, so Pioneer Spec, big Marantz and Pioneer SX-1250s' etc. were deemed "having arrived". (Me....not even close to affording that league, but with help in choosing my system, grabbed Bolivar 64 speaks, Harman Kardon 330c receiver, Technics SL-B2 turntable and a small Sony R2R....and enough cash left for a Led Zep II album!) After all was said and done those Bolivars had me in the "leagues" with a lot of other guys gear and 16yr. old nirvana had been achieved. (They eventually went boutique and car audio, now gone I think.) Sign of the times but....sure remember THOSE signs of the times I'll tell ya.

Just found out about an audio lounge across from Seattle (near or in Bremerton?) that my daughter found and explored so while not exactly a store with long hair and bell bottoms per se, going to check for a schedule of events and would love to share that with her....

Thanks for the post and the triggered good memories a10warthog!
 
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Bakersfield Audio. Bought a B.I.C 940 TT with an Audio Technica AT12E . Used to listen to all the good stuff. JBL ,TANDBERG , SONAB, PIONEER, B&O. Super cool. Across town was Casa Moore Stereo. Altec, Technics, Onkyo. RS1500US, M19,15, 9,7 ETC. Those where the good ol' days I miss very much. Cool thread, regards, SG-
 
I miss two back in MS, most. Players Audio/Video in Jackson, MS, remains in business there under new ownership since 2004. Brands in the 90s included McIntosh, B&O, Nakamichi, Klipsch, Paradigm, Denon, Optonica, and Yamaha, among others, but that has been changed I see from their website. Even more, I miss Ideal Acoustics of Starkville, MS, which had a similar product line to Players (no B&O) but added Audio Research Corporation, PSB, ADS, Duntech, WTT, Luxman and NAD. The owner believed in having top models on display, so there were always a pair of Khorns, for instance, set up and ready to play. Or a Nakamichi Dragon or 1000ZXL. Very student-friendly college town business, allowing interested students to sit and listen while studying. After graduating, many of those would call from wherever a job landed them to place an order. Several "rich kid" sales, too. That was a fun place to work. Both were.
 
I dearly miss the Peaches Records and Tapes that used to be on Camp Bowie Blvd. in Fort Worth, Texas. I also dearly miss the Tower Records that was on the corner of Broadway and 4th in Manhattan.
 
The one place I miss dearly: Blockbuster Music. The opportunity to walk into a location, pick any number of selections from the bins, and listen to them in full before deciding to buy proved to be a godsend and helpled me to fall deeper in love with music. I was 25 in 1998 when the chain went out of business (via a sale to Wherehouse Music) and will unabashedly state that my wallet was lightened by several thousands of dollars in purchases for the simple fact that I knew exactly what I was buying and left the store as a satisfied customer. Did a significant portion of customers abuse the policy and simply use a particular store as a perpetual listening station? Sure. I can only speak of my experience, not theirs. If some other retail chain opted to bring back such a concept, they'd have a consistent paying customer in a heartbeat.
 
Also: Believe In Music in Norton Shores, MI (a suburb of Muskegon). I made hundreds of purchases of cassettes during the 80s to early 90s there. The staff always had the in-house system on at what I deemed to be a "perfect" volume as customers browsed the store. They tended to display an open, welcoming attitude, were always ready to assist/answer questions and had one of the best, most frequent coupon/discount/promo programs I've seen. I haven't lived in West Michigan in about 24 years and was sad to find, via Google, that the shop closed in 2012. Ahhh... the memories.
 
There used to be a HiFi retailer fairly near me, who sold the right gear and had at least one dedicated listening room. I bought my Thorens TD160S from them, very sorry to see that they have gone now.
 
Locally, I really miss Absolute Sound. @jerrygunther in fact used to be the salesman I dealt with, at the Royal Oak location on Woodward. They used to have a total of four locations at one point, if I'm not mistaken--Ann Arbor was one, and I also recall one down on Morang St. in Detroit, several blocks down the street from Pecar Electronics (who was a major McIntosh dealer back then).

Absolute Sound used to cover all the bases. They had an entry level line, then you could step up to something like the NAD. Top of the line turntable there I believe was the Linn LP12, back in the 80s. I purchased a Grado cartridge, Hafler DH-101, Grace G707-II, two pairs of Grafyx SP-10 speakers, and one or two other things there. Better yet, I sent many friends and relatives there, and they were all helped with components or systems that were within their budget (most of them bought Boston Acoustics speakers). Never felt any pressure there. I still recall the time I visited and Jerry begged my buddy and I to go into the one listening room and hear a new speaker they had just gotten in--it was the Martin Logan CLS-II. I even went back for a listen a week or two later, and despite knowing it was way out of my budget, they just let me sit there and listen, no pressure to buy it. Yet that is when I fell big time for the planar speaker sound. I only wish they'd stuck around longer.

Alma's HiFi (formerly downtown Birmingham, on Maple) is now in the old Absolute Sound building. Audio Dimensions moved from a tiny storefront on Old Woodward (downtown Birmingham) to a larger location further south on Woodward. The Gramophone I believe is long gone--it was located next to the camera shop. Those four, plus Tech HiFi and Schaak Electronics, were all located in less than a four mile stretch of Woodward, and made for a great afternoon of visiting the audio shops for sheets and giggles. Back then, too, you could start off at Sam's Jams in Ferndale for record shopping, stop by both Harmony House locations (they had one large store, and a smaller with only classical), and pop into Solo Records (in that bright green brick building) on the Birmingham end of things.
 
gonzomeep said:
Bakersfield Audio. Bought a B.I.C 940 TT with an Audio Technica AT12E . Used to listen to all the good stuff. JBL ,TANDBERG , SONAB, PIONEER, B&O. Super cool. Across town was Casa Moore Stereo. Altec, Technics, Onkyo. RS1500US, M19,15, 9,7 ETC. Those where the good ol' days I miss very much. Cool thread, regards, SG-
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Bakersfield, Ca?
 
nedseg said:
Specialized Sounds, Madison, Wi. Miss them a lot (and admit partly my fault for not supporting them more in 90s).
Respectful expert/s (rare nowadays?), extremely knowledgeable, superb buying/sound advice, listening room, etc.
Forums may provide better breadth of 'opinions', but hard to beat having a local expert shop to bounce ideas off of.
:(
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I miss them too. And the audio store which used to be in Cross Plains.

I wish I had enough money in my retirement to open an audio shop. Good chance I'd lose money in it, would run it as a hobby. Sell new & vintage, SS & tube, carry some non-traditional speakers. Looks like Paragon on Monroe Street is moving or closing, acquiring that might be fun. But it isn't going to happen.
 
Tom Bombadil said:
I wish I had enough money in my retirement to open an audio shop. Good chance I'd lose money in it, would run it as a hobby.
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It's like the old joke goes...

How do you make a small fortune? Take a large fortune and open an audio store. :D
 
I'm surprised there was no mention of Federated Group. I thought they were one of the biggest back in the day. Too mainstream perhaps? Anyway, I remember going there quite a bit. Not having an especially lot of money at the time, the stuff they had seemed more attainable. No doubt they were a mass "product pusher", but the busy vibe they had with that big floor of stuff was pretty exciting back then. I usually ended up buying one or two blank cassettes there, which is how I built up my collection of higher quality cassettes. And I loved those Federated commercials with that Fred Rated guy. I've got to admit I was initially a little intimidated by the higher end places, knowing I didn't have the money to back up my interest.
 
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