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In Reply to: RE: Does anyone remember these great old Chicago-based stereo stores from the 70s? posted by Jeff Jenkins on February 17, 2010 at 12:25:06
Hi
I bought a graphic equalizer from MusiCraft in Buffalo Grove back then, long enough ago that i can't remember the brand name.
I might have bought a Perpetuum Ebner turntable there or maybe hifi hutch.
It turned out later i would work with Billy R, the guy who owned the "stereo studios" at a small speaker company in Northbrook in the 90's.
He was the salesman at our little venture.
If your still in town, look into Saturday audio exchange, back when i was into hifi gear, you could occasionally get a great deal on something exotic a couple years old.
Their business is buying trade-ins, checking them out and if there ok, selling them.
In 1968 i got a part time job at a small TV and hifi store after school.
Our main competitor was Columbia TV, that had a store with real hifi equipment in it.
One of the salesman happened to live behind the TV store so he would walk past occasionally. When i was installing an 8 Track player in a car, he probably recognized me as the kid drooling over the Macintosh glass.
Anyway, at one point he invited me to hear his stereo.
He had a pair of Altec A-7's and a big Mac tube amp in a tiny living room and man, compared to the Panasonic Speakers we had, sounded and actually were gigantic and captivating..
Anyway, it was a long time before i could buy any of that stuff which forced me to build things so maybe that wasn't bad.
Still deep down inside, even though i don't listen to records that often, part of me still wants that gold colored Empire turntable in the Columbia window, back then. That silly or what sheesh.
Tom Danley
Follow Ups:
I used to work for Billy at the Dundee Rd location in '87. Not sure if that's Palatine or Arlington Hts right there. Back in the '70s, I hung out so much at Victors Stereo that a friend and I were invited to a party the salespeople were having. I think it was Ben's place. I even brought my brother to Victors when he needed to replace an integrated to drive Klipsch Heresy's. He bought an Onkyo- entry level there- and he still has that setup today. I guess he didn't catch the bug...lol.
Maggie MMG's bring me back to my beloved BES dipole sound
That Musicraft location was in Palatine, on the very edge of Arlington Heights. I used to live behind it. It is now a Woodcraft store.
Regards,
Karl
"'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice./And when justice is gone, there's always force./And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi Mom!" Laurie Anderson, "O Superman (For Massenet)"
Was that on Palatine Rd a mile or two past Rt 53?
Maggie MMG's bring me back to my beloved BES dipole sound
It's on Dundee Rd. just west of Rt. 53, not far from here (Barrington).
Brian Walsh
I worked for Columbia in Highland Park back in 76. Also sold equipment for them when I was in school. Seems like another lifetime.
Mercman,
Was Sy Rubinstein (sp?) working there back then? A friend who worked at Sound Experience (car stereo) gave me Sy's name and I ended up buying a Nak CR-5A from him and then returning it for a Nak CR-7A...it was at the Buffalo Grove store though. Really straight shooter.
When I was stationed at Ft. Sheridan (78-80) I used to love going into the Highland Park store and marveling at the B&O tables and how impervious they were to external vibration.
I remember buying a used Teac A-6300 and later trading it in on a new Akai GX-747 at Pacific Stereo on 95th st in Oak Lawn. Did their eyes light up when they saw the A-6300. How dumb was I?
At the Highland Park store there was Carl Borden, Sandy Bronstein, and myself that sold the stereo gear. Norm Rozak, the owner, also worked the floor at times.
Sandy latter opened a Columbia Audio Video in Buffalo Grove with Norm. I worked a summer there when he was first opening the store.
All of these folks were good guys.
Does anyone remember Paul Scarpelli at Columbia Audio Video in Highland Park? He was there in the late 70s and early 80s. Really great guy.
Then there is a chance that a few remaining brain cells would recognize you because i still went there occasionally.
In 1974 i had moved from the TV store (20th century TV on 2nd street) on wanting to be in the speaker business.
I had gone to work for a friend from Highschool, Tom Furlong so i was building speakers up on 41 north of town and mixing bands occasionally at the Alley in Highwood at that time. Yes, it does seem like another lifetime, i guess it was..
Unfortunately the pictures don't come through on the link today but there was some reminiscing on PSW a while back.
http://www.livesoundint.com/archives/2003/april/water.php
Best,
Tom
are you still in the area?
I was going to podiatry school in Chicago at that time.
I live in So. CA now. I do miss the excitement of Chicago, but not the weather!
Steve
Hi Tom,
I remember Billy Runyan and your "flapping door" speakers. Whatever happened to him?
Brian Walsh
I don't know, last i heard he was in Mexico managing some big hotel.
He sounded good,up beat like normal but from what i understood he and his wife had separated.
That was a very sad time, my Dad got Cancer, the shuttle had blown up and much of Intersonics NASA R&D work was put on hold (along with the funding).
I thought i might be able to invent our way out of the disaster we faced and put much time into making those speakers into a demonstrable item.
The boss took on a "consultant" who thought the speaker div was the only salvageable part and then talked him (and me as well as others)into giving it to him to run.
The original founder had promised if i got a speaker division going, i could spin it off, like he did Intersonics from Interand, bummer.
The consultant took on some investors and then did some things that seemed strange at the time, that being the tip of the iceberg and eventually he left with the remaining money and went back to South Africa.
Anyway, the speaker design worked, one set i had made were flat from 40Hz to 22KHz that i had at a speaker BBQ on the "bass list" in the 90's.
The down side was there are no off the shelf parts, it required skill to assemble a driver and needed some additional R&D on materials which the consultant figured we didn't have time or need for.
The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth so my next venture into loudspeakers i figured now i am free to use conventional drivers (which i wasn't at intersonics)i would work on my favorite curiosity, horns and use more or less conventional off the shelf drivers.
Few designers seemed to care about where the sound went or even be aware that what they did effected it and this was clearly a strong part of ineligibility.
That lead to the Unity horns about 14 years ago, leading up to the Synergy horns now, which can reproduce a square wave over a decade wide bandwidth and has no lobes or nulls in it's pattern.
I have been fiddling with that style of driver (salon door) again lately (technically it is a rotary driver, each radiator being pivoted at one edge) although smaller than the "Focused field" speaker you recall (and not that may people remember those btw).
I do have a number of other transducer designs from the old days but one must be willing to take on much more effort to make drivers from scratch as you can well imagine.
Are you still in the area?
Best,
Tom Danley
Hi Tom,
Yes, I'm still here. Thanks for the most interesting reply!
Brian Walsh
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