I am feeling a bit nostalgic, and have been reminiscing about my early audio equipment. I started out (in the mid 70's) with a Radio Shack, "realistic" amp, turntable, and speakers, (made in Japan).
I used to look forward to each year's new catalog.....to see the new audio equipment. Each year, the specifications got a little "better".....power, thd%, etc.
Over the years, I "upgraded" a few times, until the late 80's, when I bought my last realistic product, a receiver that was pretty good for the price, (0.02 thd, a level many of today's h/t units seem to have trouble meeting) and versatile as well.
The components were oiled walnut veneer and"gold" anodized, they looked very "sophisticated", especially in that price level.
The speakers were perhaps, the weakest product in the line, however......they were oiled walnut veneer, sounded "ok", looked good, and would last! (I STILL have my 70's towers)
I was wondering, since so many of this forum's members are a "value conscious" lot, (myself included) how many of you have had realistic/optimus stereo equipment, and how those would "rate" it. I can seem to remember back in the day, the Radio Shack stuff being somewhat "polarizing"... you either loved it or hated it.......(kinda like the "wires" issue). In fact I can STILL see a high-end store salesman's "horrified" facial expression, when he asked: "what kind of receiver do you have?" It's not like I had a Fisher, or sound design.....for example.
Anyway, I always have thought the Radio Shack gear was underrated. I don't go to "The Shack" looking at audio, much anymore,...they have some RCA audio, ( after discontinuing the realistic, and Optimus brands) and gizmos, gadgets, etc.............BUT I kinda liked the old Shack better.

Radio Shack used to have some pretty good audio products mixed in with the rest... they had some real nice small speakers and every so often a good receiver would slip by the finance folks

i have an old pair of realistic speakers that were handed down from my dad.. they went unused for 6 years when i moved away, and then i started using them again in 95 when i moved back. i have now lent them to a good friend, and he is using them as fronts in his 'patchwork' HT system.

if i remember correctly, they are nothing worth writing home about. very plain, boxy, mono-tone sound to them. not good highs, not good lows.. i think the main reason i kept them, is because they still make sound, and ya never know when you can use that in a pinch. i am sure i will not ask for them back from my buddy.. he can pass them down, or throw them away.. i dont have much use for them now..

bigjohn

No offense, but I'm just a little suspicious of that THD value. Most Realistic stuff that I've seen is rebranded low end Pioneers. (This is probably not the case on the walnut veneer receiver, though!)

My first RS amp had 1% thd.....if they would print that.....
I tend to believe the 0.02.spec.
The reciever (1988) with the 0.02 thd, was 2nd to the "flagship"..mine was 60 watts per channel.
The"flagship" was 100w p.c., but had "more" thd......0.05 (I think)
so I never bought it.

That reminds me.....I looked years ago to find out who actually MADE the RS gear...(since none of their models seemed to "match" other brands)....ALL I ever came up with was: "custom made in Japan for the Tandy corp"............
(FORT WORTH TEXAS)

Ahhhhh those were the days....I remember when my dad took me up to the shack as a lad, and I bought my first Realistic Stereo Receiver, with LED display, wow, and my Optimus speakers, and graphic equilizer/booster.

I still have the receiver, sold the speakers, and in the 80's bought my Pioneer 4-way CS60's with 12" turbo bass woofer, they are still like brand new and still rock well. They had button selectors on the top for High,Med,Low settings that adjusted the sound from the tweeter/midrange. Also, had red decibal lights to show you when you had it cranked up....

I bought a lot of Realistic shortwave and scanner radios in the past. And I may have purchased a set of speakers for the garage but never for serious listening.

OK, here is a name from the past. I used a lot of Lafayette stereo products in the 70's. They had some excellent stuff for the price. They sold integrated amplifiers for $1 per watt! Lafayette Criterion speakers could be had for a very good price. I even bought my Dual turntable from them. No CD players back then, just good old vinyl and magnetic tape. I was fortunate to have several different reel to reel recorders too, such as Wollensak and Ampex. Reel to reel's were great for parties. You could get 2 hrs per side at 3 3/4 ips. Today's MP3 discs have that beat by a long shot even at the higher bitrates. But digital music wasn't even a twinkle in Fraunhofer's eye in the 70's

OK, now I feel old

Never had any Realistic stuff, but I did start with a all-in-one Daytron AM/FM radio/8 track/turntable combo. That, and a copy of Kiss Alive II, was my 8th birthday present.

There was a time when Zenith made the Allegro line of speakers, not bad I'll have you now...

The name-brand thing gets kinda tricky.......I was in a second hand store a few months back, and saw some Zenith bookshelve speakers in "oak", late 80's.......made by JBL.
Oh oh, I'm helping to hijack my OWN thread.

I started out with an all in one system. It was a combo amp turntable with hinged speakers and at the time I thought it was the bees knees. The speakers weren't bad sounding. I think they ended up in the back seat of my '61 Pontiac when I installed my Team brand 8-track. Believe it or not, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. It was maufactured by Admiral. Ajax and Ray probably remember Admiral. They made black and white TV's also.

In reply to:

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maufactured by Admiral

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dont they make appliances?

bigjohn

Yeah, but back when we built stuff in North America there wasn't so much specialization. Remember Inglis built handguns and IBM built machine guns in wartime...

Sirquack,
I still have a pair of those Zenith Allegro speakers in my garage for listning when I'm out there.

Yes indeedy, Realistic brand speakers baby, given to me for free by my uncle about a year ago. They now inhabit our living room and plug into my Dad's receiver in the den (also pictured), man running wire through the basement ceiling was fun, especially since the place we dropped the wire in was in my sisters bedroom....

- D