Lafayette Radio Electronics, QSL card for use by headquarters staff amateur radio operators.
"Wholesale Radio Service" was established in the early 1920s by Abraham Pletman in New York City. Radios sold by the company were trademarked “Lafayette” in July 1931. Following a Federal Trade Commission action in 1935, Wholesale Radio Service became "Radio Wire Television, Inc.". A 1939 company catalog bore the names Radio Wire Television Co. Inc. and "Lafayette Radio Corporation". In 1948, the company issued a catalog under the name “Lafayette-Concord” and called itself the “world’s largest radio supply organization”. In 1952, a catalog was issued using only the Lafayette name.[1]
Lafayette Radio Electronics (LRE) soon became a thriving mail-order catalog business; the electronic components it sold were useful to amateur radio operators and electronic hobbyists in areas where such components were unavailable in local retail outlets. Lafayette's main competitors were Radio Shack, Allied Radio, Heathkit, and "mom and pop" (independent) radio dealers throughout the United States. Early Lafayette Radio stores were located in Jamaica, N.Y. and Manhattan in the mid-1950s. The electronics kits were produced in the Jamaica facility.[1]
Lafayette advertised heavily in major U.S. consumer electronics magazines of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly Audio, High Fidelity, Popular Electronics, Popular Mechanics, and Stereo Review. The company offered a free 400-page catalog filled with descriptions of vast quantities of electronic gear, including microphones, speakers, tape recorders, and other components.[2]
In 1981, Lafayette Radio entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sold its New York area stores to Circuit City.[1]
Retail stores
Until the 1960s, many independent retailers in some markets became Lafayette Radio "Associate Stores", which were displaced when the company expanded. These stores were supported from headquarters at 111 Jericho Turnpike in Syosset, NY and a warehouse in Hauppauge, NY. A limited selection of product was stocked, with full access to a catalog with a wide variety of parts, tubes, cameras, musical instruments, kits, gadgets and branded gear that could be ordered and delivered through the local store. The company made major investments in what were called sound rooms to demonstrate hi-fi equipment, using custom switch panels and acoustic treatments in an attempt to duplicate a home listening environment and offer fair comparison with an assortment of branded hi-fi gear.[1]
Managers were rewarded for maximizing gross profit margins and inventory "turns", which led to frequent out-of-stock situations, often remedied by frequent cross-town inter-store transfers. Each store had a repair shop on site with a part-time technician. Some locations had multiple full-time service technicians. Others had service departments that operated independently of the store but under the same ownership. Stores ranged in size from 2,000 to 5,000 square feet (460m2).
By the late 1970s, Lafayette expanded to major markets across the country, struggling to compete with Radio Shack, which was purchased by Tandy Leather Co. in 1963. Lafayette ran into major financial difficulty when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expanded a new citizens band radio ("CB") spectrum to 40 channels in 1977. Lafayette's buyers had firm commitments to accept delivery of thousands of older design units capable of only 23 channels, and were not able to liquidate the inventory without taking a serious loss. Eventually, all of the old CB radios were sold for under $40.[2][3]
With fewer than 100 stores, far fewer than the aggressively expanding Radio Shack's thousands of local outlets, Lafayette Radio remained more of a dedicated enthusiasts' store than a mass marketer. The company was also hurt by the advent of electronics retailers relying on aggressive marketing techniques and competitive pricing in the late 1970s. Many experienced managers departed. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1981 and most Lafayette stores in the state of New York closed by the end of the year.[3] Approximately two thirds of company-owned stores were closed immediately. According to one employee, they were "given 48 hours to tear the entire store down, get everything boxed that had a valid and current stock number, and get it on a truck to take it back to Syosset (Lafayette’s Long Island warehouse). Anything that wasn’t on the official inventory sheets was to be discarded".[1]
In 1981, Lafayette Radio entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[1] Several Lafayette stores were purchased by Circuit City of Richmond, Virginia. Of the 150 stores that Lafayette had once owned, eight stores remained when Circuit City took over. In order to keep the Lafayette name, which was popular in New York, Circuit City changed the store names to "Lafayette-Circuit City". However, these store locations were much smaller than a standard Circuit City, and did not carry major appliances, which Circuit City carried at the time. The stores were eventually closed as Circuit City left the New York Market (only to return later). The Syosset repair center was kept open a year after the last store closing to handle warranty coverage. Lafayette-Circuit City used the phrase "no haggling" in its ad campaign, which featured celebrities such as Don King, in trying to demonstrate that the lowest price was always posted, unlike many competitors where you would have to bargain with the sales person for a lower price. This approach, however, did not work, and Lafayette-Circuit City fell due to competition from other New York area electronic retailers such as Newmark and Lewis, Trader Horn, The Wiz, Crazy Eddie, and PC Richard.[3]
As of 2003, the Lafayette brand name was re-launched at the CES show that year. The company's products are offered only through special dealers and limited retail stores.[4]
Products
Lafayette's products ranged from individual resistors, capacitors, and components to stereos and two-way radios for amateur radio, CBers, and shortwave listeners. Many were dedicated types with special functions, such as VHF receivers for police and fire channels built into a CB radio. The company's best selling products were often shortwave receivers, parts, and portable radios. In the 1960s, many Lafayette brand radios were rebranded Trio-Kenwood sets. A significant share of 1960s and 1970s vintage Lafayette hi-fi gear was manufactured by a Japanese subcontractor named "Planet Research". "Criterion" brand speakers were built by several offshore and some domestic assemblers. Science kits were popular, and Lafayette offered the "Novatron", a "Miniature Atom Smasher" (van de Graaff generator), Model F-371.[5][1]
While the catalog heavily promoted the company's own branded products, Lafayette also carried models from many other hi-fi manufacturers of the era, including Marantz, Fisher, Pioneer, Sansui, AR, Dynaco, KLH, Wharfedale, Bozak, BIC, BSR McDonald, Garrard, Dual, TEAC, Akai, Shure, Empire, Pickering, Electro-Voice, JVC, Panasonic, Sony and others.[5] The catalogs and advertising helped promote the concept of high-fidelity sound to customers, some of whom lived many miles away from major electronics stores, during a time when only the largest urban areas had dedicated "stereo" stores. Lafayette also offered TV vacuum tube testing, for customers who wanted to service their own televisions.
Lafayette was quick to jump on industry trends, first by embracing open reel tape recorders, and later, 8-track cartridge recorders and compact cassette recorders,[6] along with an array of gimmicks, supplies, and accessories.[5] During the mid-1970s, the company's stores were one of few places one could actually experience four channel ("quadraphonic") sound.[7] However the lack of a single industry standard (Columbia SQ vs. JVC's CD-4 and Sansui's QS) dampened sales, and the experiment ended in 1976.
Lafayette also sold a variety of electronic musical equipment made by different manufacturers. There were solid-body and hollow-body electric guitars, probably made by Teisco or Harmony. Microphones, amplifiers, and various electronic effects such as reverbs were available, many of which sported the Lafayette brand name, most notably the Echo Verb and Echo Verb II.[5] Among the most famous guitar effects that Lafayette sold were the Roto-Vibe and Uni-Vibe, used by many musicians, most notably Jimi Hendrix. Robin Trower, and Stevie Ray Vaughan; others later used the effect to emulate Hendrix's sounds and achieve new ones of their own.[8][9]
Tandy Corporation was an American family-owned leather-goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Tandy Leather was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store. By the end of the 1950s, under the tutelage of then-CEO Charles Tandy, the company expanded into the hobby market, making leather moccasins and coin purses, making huge sales among Scouts, leading to a fast growth in sales.
The 8-track tape is a magnetic-tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, which pre-dated the 8-track system, surpassed it in popularity for pre-recorded music.
RadioShack is an American electronics retailer founded in 1921. It was established as an amateur radio mail-order business centered in Boston, Massachusetts. Its parent company, Radio Shack Corporation, was purchased by Tandy Corporation in 1962, shifting its focus from radio equipment to hobbyist electronic components. At its peak in 1999, Tandy operated over 8,000 RadioShack stores in the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.
Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebranded under its current name with an emphasis on consumer electronics in 1983.
Zenith Electronics, LLC, is an American research and development company that develops ATSC and digital rights management technologies. It is owned by the South Korean company LG Electronics. Zenith was previously an American brand of consumer electronics, a manufacturer of radio and television receivers and other consumer electronics, and was headquartered in Glenview, Illinois. After a series of layoffs, the consolidated headquarters moved to Lincolnshire, Illinois. For many years, their famous slogan was "The quality goes in before the name goes on". LG Electronics acquired a controlling share of Zenith in 1995; Zenith became a wholly owned subsidiary in 1999. Zenith was the inventor of subscription television and the modern remote control, and was the first to develop high-definition television (HDTV) in North America.
Circuit City Corporation, Inc., formerly Circuit City Stores, Inc., was an American consumer electronics retail company, which was founded in 1949 by Samuel Wurtzel as the Wards Company, operated stores across the United States, and pioneered the electronics superstore format in the 1970s. After multiple purchases and a successful run on the NYSE, it changed its name to Circuit City Stores Inc.
Dick Smith Electronics Holdings Limited was an Australian chain of retail stores that sold consumer electronics goods, hobbyist electronic components, and electronic project kits. The chain expanded successfully into New Zealand and unsuccessfully into several other countries. The company was founded in Sydney in 1968 by Dick Smith and owned by him and his wife until they sold 60% to Woolworths in 1980, and the remaining 40% two years later.
Emerson Radio Corporation is one of the United States' largest volume consumer electronics distributors and has a recognized trademark in continuous use since 1912. The company designs, markets, and licenses many product lines worldwide, including products sold, and sometimes licensed, under the brand name G Clef, an homage to Emerson's logo.
The Source (Bell) Electronics Inc., doing business as The Source, is a Canadian consumer electronics and cell phone retail chain. The chain goes back over 40 years in Canada, initially as Radio Shack and later as The Source by Circuit City. The Source is now owned by BCE Inc., which purchased the assets of InterTAN from its parent, American retailer Circuit City, in 2009. The Source is a unit of 4458729 Canada Inc. and is based in Barrie, Ontario.
InterTAN Canada Ltd. was created by Tandy Corporation in 1986 to operate Radio Shack stores in Canada, Europe and Australia. After the UK locations, which were branded 'Tandy', were sold to Carphone Warehouse in 1999 and the Australian locations to Woolworths Limited in 2001, the company's primary asset was the RadioShack franchise for Canada. InterTAN's relationship with RadioShack was terminated in 2005, after InterTAN became a wholly owned subsidiary of Circuit City on May 19, 2004.
JB Hi-Fi Limited is an Australian consumer electronics and home appliances retail company. It is publicly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Its headquarters are located in Southbank, Melbourne, Victoria.
Tandy Electronics was an electronics retailer in Australia originally operated by the American Tandy Corporation, later International Tandy (InterTAN), acquired in 2001 by Woolworths Group. The brand ceased to exist after it was phased out by Woolworths Limited in 2011.
Luxman is a brand name of Japanese Luxman Corporation (ラックスマン株式会社) that manufactures luxury audio components. Luxman produces a variety of high-end audio products, including turntables, amplifiers, receivers, tape decks, CD players and speakers.
Optonica was a subdivision of Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp that made high-end hi-fi products and systems.
Fisher Electronics was an American company specialising in the field of hi-fi electronics. The company and the name was bought by Japanese electronics conglomerate Sanyo in 1975.
Realistic is a brand produced by RadioShack, a division of Tandy Corporation, to market audio and video products for home use. The brand name was phased out in the mid 1990s and discontinued in 2000, then returned briefly in 2016.
The Hafler circuit is a passive electronics circuit with the aim of getting derived surround sound or ambiophony from regular stereo recordings without using costly electronics. Such circuits are generally known as matrix decoders. The Dynaquad system works using similar principles.
A consumer electronics store, in the United States and some other countries, is a physical store that sells consumer electronics. As technology has progressed, the United States has known variations such as phonograph dealers, radio stores, hi-fi stores, stereo stores, and audio video stores.
Weltron is an electronics manufacturer and retailer, based in Oxford, North Carolina. It was previously located in Durham, North Carolina.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
