The stores that sold them, where are the ones in your town?

[Old school Scott]

I moved to Baltimore MD in 1983.
One of my favorite past times was to walk up and down Howard street and stare into the windows of the electronic stores.
The windows were filled with boomboxes that I could not afford and a couple that I could afford.
The grails were on a top shelf and the smaller cheaper ones were on the bottom, just like liquor.
I snapped a couple of pics of the signs from those stores of days gone by.
Do you see any signs from those old electronics stores in your town?
Fellow enthusiests, I give you Universal Electronics, and Discount City.

Cheers OSS

 

[mellymelsr]

Great pics!! As a kid in the early 80's the Good Guys was the place to find the best JVC, Panasonic, or Sanyo boomboxes. San Francisco's China Town was the best place to find the "off name" brand boomboxes from China and Korea. The first Techsonic I every seen was in a China Town electronics store. Those stores are still there, they all sell cameras and mp3 players now...

 

[Fatdog]

In my area, we never really had any "secondary" shops selling the big boomboxes. Electronic Express, Hi-Fi Buys, and Circuit City were about the only thing we had. One distinct memory is a boombox display at the front of the Electronics Express store in Harding Mall (Nashville, TN). They had the Sharp GF-777 and the Helix HX-4635 side by side (sitting on sealed factory boxes) and usually had both of them blasting a local radio station. What I wouldn't give for a picture of that now.

 

[ViennaSound]

you are a bit to early with that thread!

Just cruising around in our city to visit those "place of glory"
Nearly all stores are closed since many years..... :'-(
But some great pics to come soon

 

[ClaretBadger]

I went to Boston in the early 90's with the main intention to score a Conion or other MASSIVE US Box

But all I could find were CROWN's - and to me (being a hifi snob) that brand name does not cut it with us Europeans

I did find a place down near the Common (I think) near the T station - and it was ram full of gear - wish I took photo, but hindsight is a power I don't possess

 

[agc]

ClaretBadger, me thinks I know the one you're talking about: right across from the Park Street station there is an electronics shop like the ones you see in Times Square; they were still selling higher end Walkmans and boomboxes back in the 90's but now it's basically just 'The Coby Store' (although they do have a couple of monster Sony all-in-one systems, much too big and powerful to fall in the mini-system category...these things mean business.)
There's a shop like that in East Boston too, same thing lots of Coby crap and some Sony gear.

 

[MasterBlaster84]

In my town sadly most of those stores are gone but I'll name a few here.
Pacific Stereo - long gone :'-(
Montgomery Wards - long gone :'-(
Filco - Still in business but no boomboxes
Best Products - long gone :'-( (never had very many boomers)
Consumers - long gone :'-(

There were a number of very small shops that I can't even remember the name of but they are all long gone. :'-(

 

[MR.GROOVE]

All the shops that use to sell them are closed here in Amsterdam..I bought my first Boombox the UNIMEX at WASTORA a big electronics store in Zaandam..it burnt down in the early nineties and never opened again.

 

[walkgirl]

[youtube]8ywg8G0EUaI[/youtube]

 

[MR.GROOVE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ywg8G0EUaI

Grappig! Nog nooit gezien deze reclame! Zo was de winkel inderdaad toen ik mijn radio kocht in de jaren zeventig..leuk weer eens terug te zien..de winkel komt trouwens ook voorbij in Turks Fruit waar volgens mij de vader van Monique van de Ven in de film werkt..

 

[walkgirl]

Jup, de vader van Monique van de Ven speelde de eigenaar van die zaak!, die van Wastora
waren ook sponsor van een of andere voetbalcklub!!

De goede oude tijd!! :sin:

 

[MR.GROOVE]

Jup, de vader van Monique van de Ven speelde de eigenaar van die zaak!, die van Wastora
waren ook sponsor van een of andere voetbalcklub!!

De goede oude tijd!! :sin:

Klopt..de familie Molenaar heeft AZ opgericht..hier een foto van Wastora na de brand:

 

[Brownlow]

There were little places around, but the places to go to way back when have got to be Edgware Road and Tottenham Court Road in Central London. It used to be a great day out when you'd get a whole load of hi-fi brochures and salivate over the stuff, thinking 'I gonna get me one of dem things'.

Great days when we were 'on the hunt'



Cheers



Brownlow

 

[btphoto]

I still see places in New York, but they have different things in the windows these days. Next time I go I'll have to remember to take some photos.

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

Great thread Scott,

The two places I used to go to drool were Radio Shack when they had the new SCR-8's in and the Saugus Speedway swap meet (where I bought my TRC-920 new.)

The Radio Shack was in an old 1950's strip mall in Van Nuys, California that they bull dozed in the early 90's. The Saugus Swap meet still goes on, but I haven't been there in 25 years.

We also had the Federated Group, but again, those building have been bull dozed.

My mom and I used to have a running joke about California....always use street names to navigate, because driving by land marks will get you lost because they tear stuff down and replace buildings so often!

 

[Daniel88]

What about San Francisco?

 

[MONOLITHIC]

Since I was already in Center City, I decided to walk past here after seeing 'The Art Of Rap' a few weeks ago...

In the top left side window was the very last box I saw in an old school electronics store, a Lasonic TRC-975 with a $150.00 or $175.00 price tag on it... Back in the early 90's,
I went in and asked the dude behind the counter if he would sell it - I even offered him double the price on the box - but he wouldn't do it....
He had some story about needing the manager to get to the display or something along those lines...
I never pursued it further... The box was still MINT too!!

 

[Old school Scott]

Wow, that's a nice one.
You don't have to try hard to imagine those windows full of Boomboxes and radios.

Cheers OSS

 

[bklyn sound]

here is my favorite one ...was able to find this on google search ...this was crazy eddie on kings hwy in brooklyn...it was boombox headquaters used to go in as a kid and just drool over all the boxes in the store

 

[joeladamkrueger]

Awesome thread!
I wish I was around to see blasters on display in stores
Im jealous of you old farts!
Nothing in todays electronic stores interest me in the least! Couldnt give a flying F-ck what the new iphone can do...
Sure cellphones are nice to have but I would never get excited over them... |-)
So you cane walking, whiskey drinking, home phone owning dinosaurs should consider yourselves lucky!