Remember your First Hi-Fi Store ??

[Stillone]

Mmmmm...Pacars...a audio nut friend of mine took me there back in the seventies....But we lived near Audioland (Gratiot south of Metro Parkway) which was a big JBL dealer and they carried BIC stuff and Sherwood and other goodies I can't remember at the moment. Thanks for the memories!!

Wasn't that place called Stereoland. I think I went there when they were closing it and having an auction. There was almost a riot when every the minimum bid was higher than anyone was willing to bit. There was also another Stereoland at Farmington and Plymouth in Livonia.

 

[marty59]

Wasn't that place called Stereoland. I think I went there when they were closing it and having an auction. There was almost a riot when every the minimum bid was higher than anyone was willing to bit. There was also another Stereoland at Farmington and Plymouth in Livonia.

I wanted to verify this for you so I dug out my old high school yearbooks as I remember them placing an ad in the business sponsors section. Yep, it was Audioland! (gee, my old yearbooks are good for something). I don't know if they had any affiliation with anybody else..hard to say after all these years.

I moved out of the area in the late 70's...do you remember what year when they closed?

 

[Clutch]

K's Merchandise Mart in Decatur, IL had a stereo section with some decent gear along with low end stuff. My brother and I bought our first low-fi system there, a Soundesign am/fm 8-track in 1974. The last decent new equipment that I bought was a pair of JBL bookshelf speakers and a Technics TT from that same store about '84-85.
Team Electronics was the other store that I shopped during that era. My ADC Sound Shaper One Ten still has the Team lable on the bottom.
These stores are sadly gone.

 

[legalalien]

"Tech HiFi" on the corner of 8 mile and Kelly rd in East Detroit, MI. had most of the Japanese stuff and Advent, KLH, Ohm Acoustics and such. Then I "graduated" to the higher end stuff from "The Absolute Sound" on Morang near Kelly rd in Detroit which carried Dahlquest, G.A.S., Linn, Rogers and more brands than I can remember. Funny thing is I reminisce more over the Marantz, Yamaha, Sansui and Advent stuff and in fact now run a Marantz 2275 with NLA's and a 30 year old Technics SL1300 MKII and couldn't be happier.

 

[Stereofan]

For me in the late 60's and early 70's it was Sound O Rama in Cranston RI. It was a family-owned business that had a McIntosh franchise along with a good assortment of Sony, Pioneer, Sansui etc. electronics and speakers by Bozak, Advent etc.
I bought my first system from them, a turntable, amplifier, tuner and speakers but it was a low powered system for a low powered college student budget at the time. When I drive by the building to this day a smile comes to my face.

 

[StevieDude]

Back in the day, we had Team Electronics, The Music Shop at the local malls and Playback, and Lasalle Electronics but there was a place called EDI (Electronics Diversified,Inc.) that sold Mac, Crown, JBL, Teac etc. in the early 70s' that I am happy to say is still there today.

They were the real high end store back then as well as today, offering Rogue Audio, Canton, Jolida, Rega, Dynavector, Grado, Gromes and others. They have a warehouse full of vintage gear that gets refurbished from time to time so you never know what you will see when you walk in there.

 

[dbCooper]

Growing up on the peninsula in the bay area....the first store was Hermary's on El Camino in San Carlos. The Owner was Clarence....a great guy.

I remember it well... spent lots of $s there!

But my first discovery of a high end store was in Long Beach, CA. I can't remember the name, but it was an independent electronics/stereo shop on Alamitos just off of E. 4th. Man, they had some cool gear. I seem to recall that in addition to Mac and Altec Lansing, they had some esoteric stuff including one particularly interesting black amp that said "james b. lansing" on the front. I've never seen or heard of one of those since.

The people there were pretty tolerant. They didn't kick me out even though I was just a kid with an appreciation for high end, but no money. Not too different from today!

 

[Fast996]

I remember it well... spent lots of $s there!



The people there were pretty tolerant. They didn't kick me out even though I was just a kid with an appreciation for high end, but no money. Not too different from today!

These owners understood that when kids walked in with their eyes as big as saucers,someday they would be future customers. They were right too!

 

[Scandiainn]

Thompson Sound, Norman, OK

This shop was on campus corner owned by Lenny Bernstein and opened sometime in the early 60's. The Univ. of Ok. would present a concert (which my dad was in charge of) and Lenny would have the whole artist catalogue in his store. Dave Brubeck, Linonel Hampton, Dizzy Gilespie, George Shearing, etc.. Carried Jazz & Classical along with audiophile direct to disk.

Macintosh, AR, Dual, etc. Founded Norman Lab Speakers in the 70's.
Lenny would educate you, sell you a stater hifi set, always give you could trade ins to continually help you upgrade you system. Even did in-house financing on a pair of $100 speakers.

This fella definitely was there to sell stuff but if you hung around enough you could learn so much about jazz & classical music and of course, everything about HiFi and Stero Audio.

OOOOhhh but for the good old days

Bill Freeland

 

[onepixel]

1976. The stereo shop on Kadena A.F.B on Okinawa, Japan. It was packed to the gills with the best of it's time. Humidity is very high on the island so the show room was climate controlled. So when you walked in, the audio gear smell would give you an instant buzz!