RadioShack/Realistic/Optimus branded audio hardware: were there any gems in the bunch?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by 2trackmind, Oct 16, 2016.

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  1. stereoguy

    stereoguy Its Gotta Be True Stereo!

    Location:
    NYC

    I did the same!! Altho I build the cabinets in my wood shop at high school. Man, I thought those speakers sounded great at the time!!
     
  2. KT88

    KT88 Senior Member

    I just sold a Realistic STA-52B. It looks and sounds like an old Pioneer receiver. It is only 16wpc and has a warmer than neutral, but otherwise well balanced and fairly articulate sound as long as you don't need it to play too loudly. That is being generous as that was compared to the standard of the time of mfr, circa 1980. Today, there are a lot of better sounding overall amplifiers, but few as warm sounding. Clarity and noise specs have been improved by most brands over the years.

    The Realistic Mach One speaker, of course was a classic. It was a shot at the Altec Valencia style speaker. The Shack model doesn't compare well with the Altec but it was very popular and certainly pounded the hardest of their speaker offerings.
    -Bill
     
  3. Agitater

    Agitater Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    Not sure why your Sansui 8080 ruined speakers. My own 8080 is stellar. A recent minor service at Ring Audio in Toronto included a couple of tweaks and couple of caps and a couple of resistors, in addition to DC offset/bias current adjustment. Maybe that last bit was the problem with yours?

    I had a Realistic STA-2100 in 1980 that was terrific. I was the centerpiece of a second system, driving a pair of EPI speakers. Very nice, actually, and the tuner section was also quite good as I recall. However, the amp section did not sound quite as good as the Sansui 8080, the STA-2100 tuner had a harder time than the 8080 with stations too close to each other on the dial, the 8080's bass was cleaner and deeper than the 2100, and the 2100's tape loop was noisier. It's a difficult comparison, in any case, because the Sansui 8080 contained one of the best FM tuners of the day in top-of-the-line receivers. It's still an excellent tuner by any any measure.

    Still, with a little electronic TLC and a proper cleaning and adjustment, as STA-2000 or 2100 (or some of the lower powered models too) that came out of the Foster factory for RS are well worth having for main systems on a tight budget. Plenty of inputs, good, clean sound, plenty of power and a decent FM tuner in the bargain.
     
  4. JBStephens

    JBStephens I don't "like", "share", "tweet", or CARE. In Memoriam

    Location:
    South Mountain, NC
    I concur. My HK power amp was eating tweeters for lunch on the left channel. After adjusting the bias, no more problems. Can't say for sure if it sounds better or or not, but it doesn't fry tweeters anymore.
     
  5. Agitater

    Agitater Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    My old STA-2100 had drifted to almost 70 mV after about 10 years of use, IIRC. Correction required some parts replacement before a service adjustment would work. It had started sounding badly distorted from both channels. During a service of my Sansui 8080 quite a few years ago, the DC offset had drifted off-spec. Again, a couple of other parts were needed, but after the parts were in it was possible to adjust the offset to darn near 0 mV. Perfect, and at the last check up to have new lamps installed the DC offset had drifted at all. Sounds superb.

    Anyway, my old STA-2100 still lives. I gave it to a cousin who has been using it since the early '90s. She's got it in a rec room system in her house. Can't kill that old Reaslistic receiver. Foster made some very good products.
     
  6. vinylfilmaholic

    vinylfilmaholic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Orange County, CA
    I recently purchased the Realistic 42-2109 phono preamp off eBay for $29, hooked it up to my new garage setup and it sounds fantastic. I'm liking it better than the AT-LP120 connected straight to the Marantz PM5004 I used to have. That's now running to my Onkyo A/V receiver and it just sounds right.
     
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  7. mrvco

    mrvco Member

    I bought a used set of pre-Radio Shack Linaeum speakers (10's, 8's and a center). Properly placed, a stereo pair could sound very good. The 8" driver in the 10's tended to overdrive the Linaeum tweeters though. I think the smaller speakers that Radio Shack sold with Linaeum tweeters were probably better balanced.
     
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  8. soundboy

    soundboy Senior Member

    The later AV Fusion directional interconnects were better. Made in the US too.

    Main speakers in my system come and go, but I still have my Minimum 7s that I originally purchased to use for my Dolby Surround setup. I also love the later Radio Shack Supertape blank cassettes that were clones of Denon blank cassettes.
     
  9. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I still have some tapes of my band from decades ago on those green label tapes and they still play quite good.
     
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  10. P2CH

    P2CH Well-Known Member

    My 8080 started off with a bad life. When I just got it home new in 1976, I was hooking things up and not thinking to shut it off, I pulled one of the phono cables out so I could move things around. I heard a loud Hmph and the unit went into safety. When I restarted the receiver, it wouldn't make any sound so I took it back to Highland Appliance and to my surprise it worked. It wasn't until months later when I noticed the safety light didn't come on like it should when you power it up. I took it back and Highland repaired it. Then I noticed one channel was distorted so I took it to a good repair shop.

    They told me Highland soldered a relay contact together. But, though this unit played well after all of that, it just seemed to be a little out of balance channel wise. And it took out several tweeters in its time. I'm sure it was the design of the receiver, but when the volume was around 1:00, it didn't get louder beyond that. And, being that I wanted it to, it just blew speakers.

    For a 75 watt receiver, it never seemed like it was pushing it.
     
  11. Agitater

    Agitater Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    You just described a situation in which serious damage was done (enough to trigger a safety mode) and then obviously never correctly repaired. Your experience from so many years ago should stand as a lesson that if a 'repaired' unit still doesn't seem right, it's not. Then, either insist on a proper, full diagnostic by a competent technician, or a referral to another shop that can do the work properly. Don't blame the gear though - it's just an inanimate, dumb collection of electronics. As always, and with relatively rare exceptions, it's people who foul things up - users and technicians alike sometimes.
     
  12. P2CH

    P2CH Well-Known Member

    Yep, I agree there. In hind sight, I realize it was my fault but I should have insisted on a replacement at the time. Thing is, the way it took place, I never knew something went so terribly wrong.

    This is why I tell people to be sure they don't do what I did; don't pull audio cables from the phono input while a unit is on or volume turned up. I learned the hard way.
     
  13. masterbucket

    masterbucket Senior Member

    Location:
    Georgia US
  14. PhilBiker

    PhilBiker sh.tv member number 666

    Location:
    Northern VA, USA
    My first computer was a Tandy:
    [​IMG]
    It was awesome for games because it had the Tandy graphic card that was CGA resolution with 16 colors. All the good games supported this mode and it was fun as heck. It had 640K RAM and a 20 MB Hard drive.
     
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  15. Agitater

    Agitater Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    I learned my own lesson during the same time frame, so I'm definitely not personally critical. It's not right that you never got the chance to enjoy that 8080. A few technicians have let me down too, over the years, and partially spoiled what were otherwise good experiences with electronics products.

    In Toronto for the past 30 years or so, I'm fortunate to have access to a couple of differrent, excellent, electronics repair shops, as well as a couple of privateers who specialize in reel-to-reel repair and restoration and some other increasingly rare skills.

    I saw a big, old Realistic receiver of some sort on an intake shelf at Ring Audio a few weeks ago. It was in for repair and adjustment, so I know there are other people still getting good use out of some of those vintage gems.
     
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  16. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    I had a friend who bought a TRS-80, and he loved it. I recall a visit where he excitedly showed me that he had programmed an animation to sign his name on the screen. I couldn't see the point of that. He didn't have a printer, so I couldn't see how he could get practical use. He was a telecom technician, and in hindsight I can see that he was learning programming, which would have been a very valuable skill for him as computers developed and became integrated in the workforce.
     
  17. JBStephens

    JBStephens I don't "like", "share", "tweet", or CARE. In Memoriam

    Location:
    South Mountain, NC
  18. clhboa

    clhboa Forum Resident

    I have one of these. Nice deck. I especially like the soft eject.
     
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  19. ChadHahn

    ChadHahn Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ, USA
    I never bought a computer from Radio Shack although I often went in to check them out. As I recall Tandy Computers weren't too shabby.

    What I really liked about Radio Shack was their end of the year clearance sales. They would change the color of an item and then sell the old one for just a few bucks. I'd get some nice component switches that way.

    Chad
     
  20. KT88

    KT88 Senior Member

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  21. JBStephens

    JBStephens I don't "like", "share", "tweet", or CARE. In Memoriam

    Location:
    South Mountain, NC
    I said "great site", I didn't say "great equipment". :D
     
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  22. Burt

    Burt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kirkwood, MO
    Radio Shack's big problem was they couldn't tell the chicken salad from the chicken you-know-what, plus of course, they were cheap.

    As far as computers went, the Color Computer was way ahead of its time and class in terms of its power and capability, but the packaging was cheap. The keyboard was horrible and the general construction chintzy. What made it a really great hobby computer was the availability of the OS/9 (Not to be confused with Mac OS 9) operating system. Late in the coco's life RS came around and grudgingly offered it, but they fought it tooth and nail for awhile.

    The receivers were....some were okay, but none really spectacular.
     
  23. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    That is the famous Trash-80. I had one of the first units in production, kept it for two days, then bought a real computer kit, a Processor Technology SOL 20.
     
  24. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Same here, except it was a competitor called Schaak Electronics. Hidden in the back, a wall of components and David Weems How To Design, Build, And Test Complete Speaker Systems.

    Thank you David!!! I got so hooked, and so intrigued by myriad references to the Journal Of The Audio Engineering Society and Richard Small's articles in particular, I talked an older friend into driving (I was way too young) to Northern Illinois University's Physics library and photocopying about a 9" stack of stuff which I digested voraciously. I actually became a loudspeaker engineer! And even met Dick Small, who was a very cool guy, and quite surprised I had a complete copy of his thesis.

    As for Radio Shack, I had a 3-head cassette deck which made really excellent tapes. Quite nice! Also a turntable-in-a-drawer due to space problems; nice for what it was but hardly top fidelity.
     
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  25. steviej

    steviej Forum Resident

    Location:
    Calgary, AB
    I picked up a Realistic STA-785 receiver for $20 on Kijiji to use while my main amp is in the shop.
    It shouldn't sound this good, but I'm blown away by the performance of this little receiver. It very much looks like a 1990 VCR, but this might be the best $20 I've spent!
     
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