RCA (Gulp) Speakers From Radio Shack?

[Defshep]

Okay, I'm ready to take all the crap I'm about to get for this post. I think. I work in radio, and our station's engineer replaced some of the speakers we were using as monitors, mostly for size issues. They replaced the RCA 3-way floorstanding speakers (from Radio Shack) we'd had for almost ten years and replaced them with B&Ws. To be honest, they sounded pretty good. Everybody likes to crank it, so the fact they never blew was kinda impressive. There were some smaller RCA bookshelves (40 watt) just lying around, so I asked if I could bring 'em home. Hooked them up in my bedroom and you know what? Not half bad! Radio Shack now carries the Sony bookshelf speakers, so they're clearancing out all the old RCAs (100 watt) for ten bucks each. I thought about picking up a couple to use for my home office...Alright, let me have it!

[kexodusc]

$10 each? I'd buy into that.
Those speakers are prime for tinkerin' with. You'd be amazed how much sound you can squeeze out of some speakers with a bit of TLC and the odd inductor or resistor. Sometimes even just a bit of polyfil.
Sounds like your satisfaction/cost ratio is extremely high here - nothing wrong with that!!! Congrats on the find.

[Defshep]

I thought the deal was pretty nice, myself. Just to clarify, these are the bookshelf, midsize 2-way RCAs at RS. They're pretty light feeling, but like you said kexodusc, they may make a good project. I'm gonna pick up a couple or four tomorrow & get back to you. It seems the only reviews I can find about RCA speakers online are from ham radio operators. They've obviously spent a little time at Radio Shack and just picked 'em up cause they happened to be there.

[N. Abstentia]

Okay, I'll let you have it:

Ten bucks each? That's not a bunch of money. Well guess what...they will run circles around a $1500 Bose system.

[Worf101]

Hey man a bargain is a bargain. You don't have to have B&W's for listening to music in the basement or the garage or even the office. Shoot everything doesn't have to be Audiophile in quality to be listenable. Heck one of the best speakers I ever owned was a no name 3-way I picked up of the scrap pile on garbage day. They were so old they had cloth surrounds but man did they have great dynamic range and good sound. Kept em till the cloth rotted out.

Da Worfster

[Defshep]

Took the RCA's back. They sucked. Absolutely horrible, even worse than some KLHs I got rid of a while back. Just really hollow and boomy. Nothing like the older bookshelves I have now.

[topspeed]

Didn't Rat Shack actually some pretty decent speakers a while back? I thought they made a couple with ribbon tweeters that were actually fairly well regarded. What the heck was the name of that line?

[Ez34K]

They had quite a few speakers with Lineaum Tweeters. I believe they were the LX series.

There were also a few RCA models that were identical (almost) to the shack speakers with the linaeum tweeters. There was a center channel as well.

I saw a pair that looked a lot like the LX series, yet it had an 8" peerless woofer and the regular top mounted Linaeum tweeter. Sounded a bit too good for radio shack, might have been an actual Linaeum speaker.

[Woochifer]

Actually, Radio Shack used to feature at least a few decent items in their audio department, back when they primarily promoted their in-house brands. Most of their stock was the cheap low end stuff, but they would occasionally bring in some very capable items and price them competitively. Nowadays, more of their floor space goes towards wireless and computer products, and they've gone away from in-house brands, and more towards creating in-store departments for different companies. I think for a while they had some kind of arrangement with RCA to feature their home theater and satellite products, so almost all of the audio products I saw at Radio Shack the last few years came from RCA.

[pelly3s]

I have a pair of LX-10's and they are great for the $60 I paid for the pair. I was thinking of modding them a little to see what I can make them do

[JoeE SP9]

I have a pair of RS Minimus 7's that I purchased years ago. I use them in my bedroom system. Combined with a subwoofer they actually sound quite good. There used to be several mods for them as they were quite well regarded. As far as I know RS makes nothing comparable now.

[Eric Z]

good deal for garage/basement speakers (like worf said)- usually people have some older ones they use for those purposes, however, if you don't, spending $10 is nothing!

[CharlieBee]

Radio Shack made a few good things over the years. I have a tiny pair of Realistic Solo-2's that are fine for the computer closet.

The Realistic Mach Two speakers with 15" woofers and walnut vineer cabinets are pretty fine speakers. They compare favorably with my Pioneer HPM 100's and JBL L-100's considered pretty good speakers by most. The bass on all three is about equal when powered with my Sansui 9090 and 9090db.

Of course the fact a lady at a garage sale forced me to buy them at her price $4!! makes them even better. Only problem is a cat used the grill cloth on one for a scratching post resulting in a few pulls.

Charlie

[Lensman]

I was saddened the day Radio Shack decided to discontinue selling the Minimus 7 for good a couple of years ago (it was last masquerading as the RCA Pro X44AV). These speakers were a cheap knockoff of the Visonik David, a German mini monitor designed to work with a sub long before subs became commonplace. Given what they were, they sounded surprisingly good, and easily surpass the surrounds that come with a lot of all-in-one HT systems these days. Once every year Radio Shack would put them on sale for $29.95 each and at that price, I always felt they were one of the best bargains in the audio world.

As Woochifer mentioned, Radio Shack did sell some decent stuff over years. Their Mach Ones are legendary party speakers. The Optimus LX speakers (with the Linaeum dipole and monopole tweeters) could be impressive, though the line suffered from consistency problems. Radio Shack was actually quite experimental over the years, selling speakers with all sorts of designs including horns, ribbons, passive radiators, and even electrostatic drivers. David Weems first speaker building book was sold at Radio Shack and featured designs using drivers they sold.

The day the Minimus 7 left the shelves was the last day Radio Shack sold anything distinctive or worth buying from its audio department. Fortunately advances in computer design and our in understanding of the mathematics of sonic reproduction and mechanical properties of materials has allowed many high-end vendors to step forward to fill the void with exceptional offerings at the same prices one could previously find only in places like Radio Shack.