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1990 Radio Shack catalog
A little bit of a clickbait, but it was a wonderful nostalgia trip looking at all the stuff that people goggled over at Radio Shack almost 40 years ago.
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I still have and use a digital clock with a fairly large red display in my living room, bought from RS in the late 80s or maybe early 90s, and I have a smaller version that sits atop the AVR in one of my AV systems. A pair of the nicer (made in Japan, wood cabinets) Minimus 7s are mounted on my bedroom wall and still sound good. The Shack had some good products that have withstood the test of time |
Most of Radio Shack's audio equipment was rebranded stereo stuff from other manufacturers (some you'd probably be surprised at). Honestly, it was stuff they could get on surplus and charge a large markup on (on a lot of it, they simply changed the color of the bulbs and put their own brand name on it). Same with their car stereos. I worked there during the early '90's and remember that catalog. It was a year old when I started, but we kept it around as a reference. As an ex-employee, I will tell you the place quickly turned into a nightmare to work at, and I don't miss it at all. Some of you guys are romanticizing it. Trust me, it was a nightmare behind the scenes.
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Like most, I loved Radio Shack and found them indispensable for buying board level components for building projects well before the Internet was a "thing". |
Nostalgia for a record brush: Radio Shack in the 90's and later was not the "Shack" of the 60's and 70's. I worked as an Assistant Manager in the late 60's when Charles Tandy took over and cleaned out any managers that were not White Christians AND bootlickers. A lot of good men hit the streets. Those were the ones who knew their clientele, what to stock when, and how to work the new system that sent every store what was being promoted that month and ignored requests for what would sell in a particular market. I finished my degree and moved on. When I checked in again for some summer fill-in work a few years later, the product line was changing fast into a toy store for customers who wanted remote-control everything. The staff seemed only motivated to demonstrate R/C goodies in the aisles because that was a quick sale to an impatient kid. I moved on. In the early 90's the business I worked for was reorganized and another lot of guys were surplused, myself included. I checked in with the local RS district manager and was offered a store manager slot on the spot. I declined when he explained that half the salary was in the form of stock options, and most of the rest was commission with a 70-hour work week the expected norm. With the RS stock a poor bet at best, and the likelihood of your store being closed on a moment's notice based on failure to meet a sales target you have little or no say over, I was less than thrilled with the prospects. Combined with the continued stock-push approach that ignored what a store's local market wants it was a losing proposition. With only the most stellar stores staying open, and those going to managers that focused on currying the favor of the DM (or higher) the incentive to do anything other than draw a paycheck while looking for another job was minimal. The Shack's fate was inevitable and obvious. RS did have the distribution network and the stores to do what Walmart and Amazon are doing today but failed to transition to a buy-online-and-pick-it-up-locally approach (along with a handful of other High-margin impulse items that were always good sellers). By the 2000's, the company and most of its employees were just zombies waiting for the next quarterly results and round of closures. Turntables, their media and accessories were only in catalogs, if at all. I miss the Shack, and also the days when there were higher-end Stereo shops on many a main street - even in some small towns, and always in anything called a city. Today, you can order anything online from anywhere in the world and probably have it arrive in a day or two. If you see it online offered by a store down the block, there is a less than 50% chance it will be stocked locally, but you can pick it up there in the same two days as you can get it delivered to you. Browsing for accessories in the store doesn't work anymore because just like Radio Shack, only the fast-moving, bigger ticket items qualify for shelf space. When the majority of buyers feel earbuds and a phone add up to quality entertainment, a nice audio showroom is tough to justify in most markets. The world has changed, and so have we, but the LP lives on, for now. When I buy accessories, I buy two - one for now and one for when I can't find a replacement. The key components will still find a niche and (usually) keep getting better. Now it's time to stop typing and stir up a few electrons in the living room... |
Radio Shack (RS) employee true story from 2004. While working at NASA headquarters in Washington D.C., I would periodically take a walk during the lunch break. Having purchased a KAB audiophile Technics SL1210MK5 turntable in 2004, I wanted a record and stylus cleaning brush for my 3,000 LPs. So I pop into the Radio Shack store on 4th Street and ask the 20+ year old where they keep the audio cleaning accessories. He gives me a blank look. So I provide specific information. He says "You mean a CD lens cleaner?" I say no, a brush to clean or dust the grooves on a record. The RS employee says "A record? What are you talking about?" At that point, I simply thanked him for his trouble and exited the store. |
Here’s a link to Radio Shack catalogs starting with 1939 to their last one…fun stuff! |
