Remember the old DAK catalogs?

Audio from the Bone Fone wasn't particularly good, but it certainly was highly valued by high school kids as you could listen to the radio in class with no one the wiser especially in winter. A sweater would cover it up nicely. I'm surprised no one has reissued them.

 

I'm on the DAK mailing list, and they sent me something interesting today. They are selling earbuds with large drivers for better bass response. They look funny, but I wonder how they sound. I'm not normally a fan of earbuds, but these have me tempted.
http://www.dak.com/reviews/3308story.cfm

 

2. Here's Why BSR Earbuds Fit
Even The Smallest Ears Best.

Because they come with 4 different sized ear cushions. It's magic!

Still, I'm intrigued in spite of my brain telling me to stop now.

 

DAK Attack

I used to get their catalogs but I never ordered anything from them. I think I got their catalogs due to being on their mailing list due to my subscription to the old Audio Magazine.

Scott

 

That must be how I got on the list myself!

 

I give DAK a lot of credit for turning me into a Classical music geek.

One of the items they carried was a large Classical CD collection. There were something like 100 titles in the set, and it sold for about $150. ("Vienna Masters Series") My grandparents gave me the set for a X-mas gift when I was 13-14 years old (had received my first CD player earlier that year-a gift from my parents for earning a "4.0" GPA for the school year). The set included virtually all of the "important" composers spanning from Baroque-Modern and gave me many, many hours of pleasure discovering this great music. I still have the CDs, and believe it or not, there are more than a few excellent performances among them.

The only piece of hardware I ever had was the BSR digital equalizer. What made it interesting to me at the time was the fact that it was remote-controlled and had a very large FL display (of course, an essential accessory for an 80s-era "rack system" ). I hooked it up a few months ago just for fun, and it really doesn't sound half bad!

 

Yeah, this is a trip...! I used to LOVE getting those DAK catalogs. One of the things I always looked forward to in the mail. The one thing I did end up buying from them was the BSR EQ, which I still have to this day and sounds great. Must be at least 20 years old now. I don't use EQ a whole lot, but when I need it, it's there and does the trick nicely.

 

Really nice Grandparents you're lucky. They made sure you got some culture with your Hi-Fi.

 

I think everyone bought that BSR EQ... I remember using the pink noise generator and the little mic that came with it to set the EQ for my listening room. Unfortunately my EQ bit the dust after about five years of frequent use.

 

Okay - I've been laughing and shuddering at the same time while reading along!

When I worked in a stereo shop15 years ago there were a pair of the DBX five(?) sided speakers in the basement. Just to add atmosphere to the telling, the floor of the basement was actually dirt and you could see the original frame of the 100 year old building. One of the owners had bemoaned for some time the broken state the speakers were in - his favorite speakers, etc. So one day were drag them out of the mud, clean 'em up and find something that could be easily repaired to plug 'em in to.
Despite the loss of stability in the speaker surrounds they made an attempt at reproducing music. Huge, yet confused and smeared soundstage. Loud, to boot. Not the worse thing we'd ever heard, but, well, confused. The owner laughed and said so much for his memory. Sold them for scrap.
Glad I got to hear them and have to admit that occasionally I wished I had kept them -
with very little work they would have made nice Daleks.
(looked for a photo, but alas...)

 

Awesome thread. I used to spend hours going through every single description in the DAK catalog when it came every month. I was obsessed with that catalog as a kid. When I was in high school, each year for Christmas I'd usually ask for a new piece of stereo equipment. One year I asked for that incredible looking digital 14 band BSR equalizer. My god I loved that thing... the dancing lights, the equalization control, it was incredible.

That stayed in my system (though mostly just for the light show) for at least 10 years before the display finally bit the dust. In the last few months, I've found myself yearning to find another one to run from one of my tape monitor loops just so I can have the light show again!

 

With the demise of the original DAK it also took SAE with it. DAK had purchased SAE in the late 80's, sold off the remaining inventory and farmed out the SAE TWO line to Japan. Morris Keesler got the SAE name back a few years ago and now rebadges his ATI line as SAE in Europe.

 

Just the other day I saw in a thrift shop one of the dbx speakers they used to have in those catalogs. I was pissed that they only had one! If it was a complete pair, I definitely would have bought them just to give them a try.

 

Was that the "soundfield" model? Very interesting concept, although a slanted horn like the JBL Everest might be a better approach to that.

Why didn't you buy it to play your mono Beatles through ha ha?

 

Haha...I'm probably the only person on this forum who doesn't own any mono Beatles!

I dunno...I thought the soundfield was the bigger one? I'm not sure...this was a smallish bookshelf speaker. It did have a port that was angled, if I'm remembering correctly...hang on...

It's these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vinatge-DBX-3X2...29?pt=Speakers_Subwoofers&hash=item4156df6d51

I think you're right, they are referred to as soundfield speakers even though this guy's listing doesn't say so.

 

Wow, this thread has brought back memories. As a kid, I used to sit and read those catalogs religiously, sometimes over and over again. Bought a few things out of it, too, like my first modem, a 300 baud, manual switch. Dial the number, wait for the carrier, push the slider switch, and you're online. Also bought a BSR 14/14 equalizer with remote. Loved it when I had it hooked up years ago. It's been sitting in a closet for almost 15 years. Hmm....

 

Not to mention the BSR LRC-1 fully learning remote. Blank slate, learn any code on any key. I used it for years until my then fiancée had to watch tv in the bedroom when I was out of town on business because I had the only key to the layout in my head. I still have the remote. Haven't used it in 12 years or so, but can't part with it.

 

I enjoyed looking through DAK's catalogs. Each one was a graduate level course in bull$h!t artistry. I never bought anything from them, though. I assumed that merchandise such as a tape cassette that needed more than half a page of single-spaced text to market must have been junk, and friends who did buy from DAK bore witness to that.

Early on, my favorite catalogs were from Lafayette and Allied (before they were assimilated by the Radio Shack collective). Lafayette's headquarters on Long Island were not too far away from me, and as a kid my visits there were better than a trip to Disneyland. IIRC Lafayette's hi-fi components were made by Trio of Japan, who became better known in the USA as Kenwood, while Allied's were made by Pioneer. I never found out who made Radio Shack's house brand stuff. A testament to the quality of that Lafayette and Allied equipment is the fact that decades later you can still find examples on eBay in excellent working order.

 

hmph. looks easy enough to use;





i guess that if you wife had problems with with that,
then she would have just LOVED the PIONEER CU-AV100,
my personal daily-use super-remote to this very day;

 

The button labels on the LRC-1 meant nothing. You could program any function into any button. Unless you memorized where the functions were, you'd be lost. If you wanted access to anything more than the basic functions, you were forced to use labeled buttons for other purposes.

 

i see A~D buttons and a +~- set that would need markings.
otherwise, the balance of the keypad is self-explanatory,
so long as you program functions according to the button legends.

my PIONEER CU-AV100 is the same, except every button has
a designated function, though each is programmable.

PIONEER provided a set of blank, pre-punched overlay templates
that you can write your own function legends on, then place
over the keypad.

didn't your BSR have a similar accessory, at least for the
unmarked buttons?

 

No, it did not. I had always thought about creating one with a hole punch, but never did. Yes, it's fairly straight forward as long as you color within the lines, but I wasn't a fan of having to switch banks for different components - instead I made each bank activity based. For instance, Bank 1 was for watching movies, so I would combine functions for multiple components into that bank for that specific activity. This meant abandoning the labels and programming for ease of use in the real world. For example, to watch a movie, I would need to turn on the receiver, the DVD player, and the TV. That meant hitting the two Power buttons and the Rec button. I would never Record while watching a movie so that would have been a wasted button if I had stuck with their labels. Instead, I repurposed it for my own use. Of course, I wouldn't expect anyone else to know that the Record button turns on the TV and the ALT button switches the input on the receiver.

The best remote I've ever had has been the Pronto TSU-2000. Total flexibility left up your own imagination.

 

When I was 13, I lusted after that BSR EQ and told my parents that's what I wanted for Xmas. They told me that was right at what their budget was for presents, and if I got that, it would be the only gift I received that year. My sister would have scads of gifts and I would have to sit there and watch her open all her gifts and I would regret only having a single present. I told them I was perfectly fine with that and they wouldn't hear a single complaint from me.

Xmas day comes, I've got one gift, the BSR EQ. I watch my sister tear thru her gifts, and once gifting is done, I zoom off to my room to play with my new toy. 30 years later, it still resides in my man cave, fully functional, with all the led/lights still shining brightly. Last time my folks were over, I pointed it out to them and told them to ask my sister if she still has any of her gifts from that Xmas.

Almost lost it in a poker game twelve years ago. When I put it in the pot, my friends got dead silent and things got very serious. Most of them had been lusting after that EQ for years. Luckily, I won the hand.

 

Great Post!

 

Great story! I was actually thinking of selling it. In the days of HDMI, I'd have to think of how to work it back into my current, minimalized system. I don't think receivers have tape loops anymore.