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Remember your First Hi-Fi Store ??

Mid 70's was Red Apple here in Paragould. They carried Ohm, Marantz, Superscope, TEAC and Grundig. In nearby Jonesboro there was White Dog who carried Advent, Boston Acoustics, NAD and Yamaha. Both carried records and tapes and sold concert tickets.
 
Good old, Fairview Electronics, 1038 Albion road in Toronto's West end. Then I found Audio Empire, just across the street. That was 35 years ago. Harley, the owner, and Audio Empire are still there.
 
The first was The Music Store in Greenfield, MA. Where my Yamaha obsession started; where I first heard a Yamaha A-1 amp paired with ADS L-910s...nice.

A few years back my wife and I attended a dinner party where David Dean Smith's daughter was present...she recounted that all she ever wanted to hear was a McIntosh MC240 amplifier paired with Yamaha NS1000Ms :naughty:
 
Classic stereo and lehman electronics. classic still has one of the best service dept in the tri state area.
 
Mine was part of the "ListenUp" chain here in the Front range of CO. I wandered in wondering if they sold XLR cables (for recording), and ended up listening to some B&W speakers. They pretty handily outclassed my Bose Sounddock, and, well, it was only a matter of time before my addiction began in earnest.
 
Believe it or not, my first taste of real hi-fi gear (not too shabby but certainly not TOTL) was Lafayette Electronics in Albuquerque. They carried Sanyo, JVC and Sherwood.
West Coast Sound although specializing in car audio had some decent higher-end home gear. My first look at Mac and Marantz was at WCS.
And there was a shop in one of the two malls within walking distance of the house I grew up in who carried the hoyty-toyty stuff like B&O as well as TOTL Pioneer, Kenwood and Sansui but I can't recall the name of that shop.
 
Had a whole bunch here: Atlantis Sound, Myer Emco (still here actually), Jack Luskin ("The Cheapest Guy in Town") and Needle in a Haystack which specialized in everything related to turntables/

More than the high end shops, I remember the electronics departments at Sears, Wards and even Best Buy as being wonderlands full of silver and VU meters.

And I would not be the first here to recall Radio Shack as being a quasi high end store for hi fi.
 
my first trudge into an audio store was sitting in line at a mcintosh clinic in miami with a decrepit dynaco stereo 70 that was recovered from the curb. i was about 16-17 at the time. O'brien still performed all the tests and treated me just like everyone else.
 
First High End store was Colorado Music, thats where I first heard a set of Maggies and the other was Listen up. Colorado music is long gone and Listen up was sold and is now a yuppie haven. However there was a small place in Boulder I think it was called Tubed, lots of new and used MAC and Dynaco MMMMMM Nice!
 
Pacific Stereo branch store in San Jose, Kalifornia circa 1970 or so. Up until then I had hung out at Quements Electronics which had stuff to build a stereo or any part there of :)
 
Custom Stereo in Columbus Ohio. Everything high-end in the late 60's except Mac. My friend drug me there to hear these monsters called KlipschHorns in rosewood blowing the doors off with a 25 watt tube amp. A couple years later I auditioned the EPI 1000 towers there. Never could afford either and still don't own either. They've been closed for years.
 
For me growing up in Southern California during the 70's it was first Pacific Stereo and then came the competition: Cal Stereo, Leo's Stereo, Federated. And all prior to this was Muntz Stereo ( I used to go snow skiing with Muntz's son up in the Big Bear Area with the Blizzard Ski Club circa 1967) My how times have changed.

Efa
 
MisterFishey said:
Too young to have experienced hi-fi stores... society is too far gone for me to ever experience it. :tears:
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say that... the one I cited as my first has changed but it's still there selling great products. Go to a McIntosh dealer (other than Modia unless you have no choice), or... there have to be dealers selling other high-end brands somewhere.
 
when i was a student at keene (nh) high school, ca mid '60s, the 2 shops in town were the 'mgf melody shop' and the local rat shack.

loved perusing the gear but couldn't afford any of it. first stereo was an rca portable stereo phono replete with ceramic cart from 'bradleys dept store', iirc.

after a year or so, i attempted to install an aux input for tape and outputs for use with external amp. never did get either to work 100%.

edit-now i hang out at 'back room audio' in the back of 'turn it up' media shop, 05301. ralph sells excellent condition used and some new mid-fi/some hi-end gear.
 
Audio by Zimet in Roslyn, NY. I bought my Dynaco SCA-35 (and one for my sister) and my AR-4x's there in the early '70s. They were a big proponent of Frazier speakers too. They did a lot of concert sound with Frazier PA set ups. Harvey Radio was right next door, but Zimet had a low-key way of totally outclassing them.
 
Musicraft at 95th and Western in Evergreen Park, IL was the closest to those of us in the south 'burbs in the early '70s. Musicraft was a small Chicago area chain with a mid-fi emphasis, even though they were a McIntosh dealer.

Soon thereafter, Audio Enterprises in Chicago Heights opened my eyes to the boutique "high end" market: Marantz, B&W, ADS, B&O, McIntosh, Crown, Sumiko, Micro-Seki, Tandberg, Bedini, Koss Electrostatics, Quad, Revox, Phase Linear, Thorens, Grado, Luxman, Dahlquist, Sony's "top shelf line" among others.
 
For me it was York Radio in Quincy, IL Even though I was in 2nd or 3rd grade I still vividly remember seeing lots of Pioneer Silver gear, Spec components, RT-909, and Marantz components too. Its kinda scary that a 2nd grader would actually give a hoot about stereos in 79'. I think I was looking over there catalog well into 1984 hoping for the day when I could buy it.
 
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