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Realistic Amps,Who made the decisions?

volumeon12

volumeon12

Active Member
Big fan of Realistic. Amps and receivers, from 70s, early 80s. Just was wondering
does anyone know who made the decisions,on the specs on various amps,etc.
They must have had a tech department in the US. Then the manufacturing
was farmed out. Silly post but you never know?
 
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They had for some time an engineering and development group in Texas. I know it was the group that developed the computer systems such as the II, III, IV, TRS-100 and the others that predated their conversion to selling just IBM clones. Not sure if the group had other mandates.

As likely as not, the marketing department had a big say in what the company would carry as product including specs, price points and features. More so than an engineering department. Once the marketing department knew what it wanted then the bid specs would go to purchasing that would put out a rfb. Marketing and possibly engineering would then evaluate the bids. This was the way Lafayette and Olson purchased except Olson did not have an engineering department. So, do not see why it would have been that much different for RS when it came to their house brand audio merchandise.
 
It seemed to me toshiba had a part in manufacturing their recievers at one point.I`m not 100% sure. Maybe it was hitachi:scratch2:
 
A number of different Japanese majors built electronics for Radio Shack and badged them as Realistic or Optimus. Foster (parent company of Fostex) built many of the Shack's receivers during the 1970s. Their tape equipment suppliers included Toshiba and Sharp. The marketing and engineering departments that made the product decisions were based in Fort Worth, Texas.
 
There is a member here named Tecexec who posted a few times this Summer with some info on his days designing speakers for RS.
 
I know that the same factory that made our products (Quadraflex, Concept, etc.) also manufactured a number of the Realistic receivers, though I can't tell you which ones.
 
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