Remember the old DAK catalogs?

I think they may still be around in some form. Did anyone ever purchase any of their items? As a kid, i would look forward to reading the owner's stories (I believe his name was Drew) about all the items. It seemed every item had some big major story line.

 

sure, i remember buying a cassette deck de-magnetizer from DAK.

 

They are.

Drew Alan Kaplan, to be exact.

I never bought any of his products, but do remember the ads for DAK (and his competitors, JS&A and Sharper Image) in every issue of Popular Science during the 80s...


-Aaron

 

Actually, the current incarnation of DAK is a new company run by the same person who ran the original DAK. The original DAK closed down in 1994. Thus, the two DAKs are different companies that share the same common owner.

 

Which still qualifies with the OP's statement: 'in some form'. Its still DAK, just not the 'original' one.

 

I missed those BSR equalizers and dbx speakers.

 

I remember Drew's ads in stereo magazines back in the 80's, maybe as far back as the 70's. I recall his challenge to Cincinnati Microwave to have some firm test his cheap radar detectors compared to the Escort. I think he offered a cash payment if Escort could be shown to be better according to some terms he had decided on. I don't recall buying anything from DAK, primarily because I hated the ads that cluttered the stereo magazines.

Chris

 

I have a DAK equalizer.

 

There used to be a DAK store a few miles from where I live. They were moving a lot of SAE gear at the time.

Some fun stuff in their catalog and a lot of junk. It was always a good read, though.

 

I remember a word processor (remember those?) they sold that used a cassette tape of "Powerful Wordstar Software".

 

My brother's system (we shared an apartment in college) had the BSR eq and the biggest 5-way dbx's DAK sold. As I recall those speakers weren't too bad, but I wasn't too critical a listener back then. DAK wrote great ad copy.

 

Oh yeah, I got an Emerson boom box from them as a kid, too. Rural Vermont in the 80's...all mail order.

 

Great fun to keep in the "reading room." I bought a drum machine from them but it was pure junk.

 

I bought some DAK tapes. A lot of them as a matter of fact.

M~

 

My BSR 10 band EQ lasted almost 10 years before it died... and I thought the pink noise / spectrum analyzer feature was cool.

 

Yep,
Bought a Kenwood KT-815 tuner for $139, which I still have. I don't use it any longer due to the fact that I live in a valley surrounded by hills, and the reception is iffy at best.

 

Yup, old Drew. His tape was a bargain because it was surplus, once used NASA instrumentation tape. Unfortunately, being designed for something besides audio, it worked only after a fashion. Everything he sold was either junk or something he had gotten a great buy on for some other reason, such as the company having a colossal overstock or going broke.

Most quality oriented people learned to avoid anything he sold, even though occasionally there was a good use for something, such as teaching kids AV skills like splicing tape and biasing decks with the tape.

I found several of his old catalogs in a pile of magazines a short while ago and tossed them before thinking that they would have kitsch value.

Another similar business was the company that bought the short ends of cinema film from Hollywood cameramen and respooled it as still camera film. It worked about as well as the instrumentation tape: after a fashion. It would also play hob with chemistry used to process regular C-41 film, processors hated it.

 

got a small, spotty collection of the catalogs; 1983/1991;



pretty much nothing but CRAP in those things. still,
a fun look back to what once was...

i also happen to have one of those AWFUL house brand cassette blanks;



even my TOTL LASER AMORPHOUS headed PIONEER CT-S800
can't wrestle any magic out of that turd...

 

I was always curious about the speakers that had the mid-range and tweeter facing up, as well as a pair facing forward... did anybody here buy those?

 

wow...I wasn't the only one. I forgot about the blank tapes. I was tempted to buy some. As a kid, I used cheapo blank Cetron and Kmart brand tapes. Every now and then, I could talk my dad into buying me a 60 minute Memorex normal bias tape (they came with the funky pull away case bar).

 

Those are the ones my bro had. I wasn't too hifi in my college days, I thought they sounded all right.

 

Wow. This thread is bringing back my teenage audio junkie excitement. I just had a scant memory of a passive subwoofer he sold that I purchased or maybe that was from another catalog house of the same era? Can anyone confirm? I think it was a Cerwin-Vega.

 

I believe it was DAK. That was the first place I ever heard of a subwoofer.

 

I don't know if I just got a bad batch of 10, but those DAK tapes were awful. The reels seemed to drag and I remember having to toss them all.

I still have my old BSR subwoofer from them - the surrounds have long since rotted away, but it's used as a "table" in a storage room.

 

This one?