I've been encouraged to take a journey into the past and look at the beginnings of Pacific Stereo. The story really begins soon after WWII when my grandfather used his experiences during the war to start an electronic parts supply company in Berkeley, California. He chosed the name Pacific Radio and located his first store on Shattack Avenue. This business venture became quite successful during the 1950's. It was a real family run business as I remember my grandfather, dad, and I all working together on many weekend Saturdays. My grandfather decided during the early 1960's to expand and open other stores/outlets to supply electronic parts throughout the Bay Area and select locations in northern California. In the mid-1960's, my grandfather decided to sell the Pacific Radio chain to Tom Anderson, at the time the GE rep who made frequent visit to the store in Berkeley, and Ted Bennett. After the sale, my grandfather moved to the Monterey area and opened a new electronic supply company in Monterey and my dad purchased the Pacific Radio store in Concord, California and continued to supply electronic parts in the Contra Costa county area. I, during this time, delivered parts for my dad after school and continued to do this until I moved away to attend college in 1969. This is the end of Part 1. To be continued....
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Pacific Stereo History/The Early Years
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Rick Vestal
Have a nice day and duck!
Bizarre... I literally, just a week ago, read a thread of yours elsewhere regarding your restoration of a receiver for a friend and my first thought was "too bad he's not on AK, they'd love this..."
And here you are
And here you are
silverlord
Audio Junkie
I love a good history lesson!
hifitommy
Super Member
i lived close to the one in north hollywood where vineland and lankershim cross. i got my first good stereo there, a sony 6055, dual 1215/shure m91e, and dynaco a25s (the best part of the system).
later i bought an ampex 6 head auto reverse reel to reel but as good as it sounded, i had to return it because of reliability probs and replaced it with a teac 4010GSL which still works fine today.
then i remember the opened Recycled Stereo inside that store and there was a MOUND of used dyna tube units that i foolishly passed up.
later i bought an ampex 6 head auto reverse reel to reel but as good as it sounded, i had to return it because of reliability probs and replaced it with a teac 4010GSL which still works fine today.
then i remember the opened Recycled Stereo inside that store and there was a MOUND of used dyna tube units that i foolishly passed up.
Coastsider
Curmudgeon
That store was also one of my favorite haunts. I lived in Laurel Canyon and so it was just "over the hill" and a bit to get there. I also remember a University Stereo almost next door on the block just north. It was in a small house and I believe predated the Pacific Stereo store.
Not to digress but does anyone remember the Southern California Hi-Fi show at the old Ambassador Hotel with manufacturer's set ups in all of the cottages? Ah the good old days.
hifitommy
Super Member
yes, i went to that show. steve mac cormack was then working for jonas miller and he was demoing a pair of visonik davids on corinthian columns and an M&K sub in the corner out of sight. that turned out to be a really successful arrangement for speakers and is still done today.
there was one room where they had a massive sub (cerwin-vega?) "playing" sub sonic noise that turned the room into jello! it was NOT music nor anything resembling it.
also, someone had some recordings by tomita of popular music which has NEVER been released here in this country. i know, i looked!
there was one room where they had a massive sub (cerwin-vega?) "playing" sub sonic noise that turned the room into jello! it was NOT music nor anything resembling it.
also, someone had some recordings by tomita of popular music which has NEVER been released here in this country. i know, i looked!
beatcomber
AK Member
Was he in direct competition with Al Lasher's electronics supply store on University Ave.? I think Lasher's opened in 1960.
There was a shop called Pacific Stereo where I lived in the mid-seventies that sold a lot of advanced electronic stuff. The owner was into building small computers and he sold the 8 bit circuit modules (not chips) in transistor format and all the parts needed to build a computer. I bought his 3 inch thick binder on programming, which started with a long introduction into the world of bits. You know, 0 and 1 switching and the effect of building those up in a series of interconnected circuits using the 8 bit switching parts... he used tape decks for loading and running programs typed onto the tape, so no more Fortran or key punch cards which were a pain in the arse and needed a giant punch card reader. It was all very promising stuff. But expensive. So I just never built a computer.
They hardly sold anything you'd call stereo equipment. That was just sort of a sideline, like... it's called a Pacific Stereo so we'd better have two or three stereos for sale, but they were not serious about that side of things.
I sometimes wonder what happened to that guy? He was clearly beaten to the finish line by Gates and Jobs, but I bet he wound up working for one of them. He was a proper genius.
They hardly sold anything you'd call stereo equipment. That was just sort of a sideline, like... it's called a Pacific Stereo so we'd better have two or three stereos for sale, but they were not serious about that side of things.
I sometimes wonder what happened to that guy? He was clearly beaten to the finish line by Gates and Jobs, but I bet he wound up working for one of them. He was a proper genius.
I am a new member. I worked at the Pacific Stereo on Vineland in North Hollywood. Interesting story behind them. In the early years, The Fair Trade Act was still in force. You could not discount anything. How Pacific Stereo packaged systems at a "discount", (which they said "savings"), was to create an in-house brand of loudspeakers (bookshelf) and create inflated retail prices for them By doing this, the advertised a whole system with a price that reflected savings. Since it was their own brand, they essentially ignored Fair Trade. Absolutely brilliant marketing and advertising. Brand named "Quadraflex". I believe they were manufactured by Cerwin Vega if memory serves. I worked in the "high end" sound room on the left rear wall of the showroom. Marantz separates were mounted face-up in a control board. The majority of the speakers were bookshelf, but there were also Altec Santana's, that utilized a bi-cone 15" woofer. Of all the speakers I demonstrated, the musicality of two still rock my world. Advent bookshelfs set up with 4 Advents. 2 up on the shelf, and 2 on the floor. Awesome. The other was the Altec-Lansing "Bolero". What a fabulous speaker. Used a 12" woofer, 12" passive radiator and a horn mid-tweet. They are rare and valuable now. I later worked for LTV Ling Altec in Anaheim, and after that Pioneer Electronics Corp. I still have my Luxman "Champage" seperates purchased on the final days of RogerSound Lab, plus a Class A Luxman amp. C02, MO2, and so on. I currently have Mirage M5 towers. I remember our "Recycled Stereo" dept. So much fabulous equipment! I also sold at High Fidelity House in Pasadena, and House of Sight and Sound in Van Nuys. I'm 66 and my memory is not perfect, but generally very accurate.
The University Stereo opened just doors away from Pacific Stereo. That's when University Stereo opened up their original in a homes garage. I was there for that.
Lavane
Lunatic Member
Right? The nearest Pacific Stereo was an hour drive from here. Whenever one of my friends or I had saved up enough money to buy some new audio goodie, that person called a few more to go for the ride. And maybe get them to pitch in for gas too.
Gas had gone up to the jaw dropping insane price of 76 cents a gallon! 
ron wa9rhu
Member
I was part of the first Chicago Pacific Stereo located in Oaklawn,Il and entered the Stereo Market when Pioneer, Sansui, Kenwood all cost close to $1000.00. if you wanted to buy a stereo system that was decent $2000.00 was not unusual to spend on a Pioneer receiver and a turntable and a couple of Speakers. Service Department in every store we had 5 service benches with full test equipment did decent numbers because we had a visible service center in the store this was all before the clown cars started showing up,Highland, Playback,Musicraft and others that came and went in bankruptcy within 5 years, Pacific had the right idea to expand but didn"t have the right capital, sort of what you see with Best Buy now, Large sales floor not enough Hungry, good salespeople and trying to sell everything in one building, Stereo, computers, home theater, ranges, stoves, refrigerators
Phones, PlayStation Car stereos, Media and God knows what else...
Phones, PlayStation Car stereos, Media and God knows what else...
Lavane
Lunatic Member
Best Buy is sort of like the old Best stores selling everything.
Which location?
Here's a screen-shot showing where Pacific Stereo was located in Covina, Ca. It was on the corner of Citrus Ave and Shopper's Lane. I have great memories of PS! I purchased my Marantz 2285 and Pioneer RT-701 at this location, around 1977 if I recall. Hard to tell from the picture, but the building is currently a wine bar! At least the entrance is still the same as it was for PS!
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2285 Marantz was their "high power" unit. Lovely unit but it had it's output stage issues. I have seen most of these being resold as "refurbished" I'm trying to remember exactly what the issue was. Marantz receivers were manufactured by Standard Radio of Japan for Marantz, which later got absorbed by Superscope. I noted here that someone was selling dial pilot light bulbs. https://www.hifishark.com/search?q=marantz+2285+receiver