Podcast #949: Vintage Stereo Commercials and Best Practices for Optimizing your Smart Home

Karl sent us an email with a link to a Youtube video loaded with stereo commercials from the 70s and 80s. It was fun going down memory lane. We go through the commercials and discuss what has changed over the years. We also round out the discussion with some cool Smart Home products and how you can optimize their use!

Audio electronics companies like Marantz and Pioneer used to run television commercials touting their hi fidelity products. You don't see that too much any more. Even television manufacturer commercials presenting their proprietary TV technology were more prevalent than they are today. Honestly if the pharmaceutical companies took their ads off the air there might be more room for these types of ads to come back! Some were quite creative.

Video Found Here

• Korvetts - A New York Department store with a large Home Entertainment section. It is amazing how many different stereos and home electronics department stores carried. Now to see something like that you have to go to a Best Buy. I remember going shopping with my mom at the "The Broadway", a local department store in Southern California, just so I could hang out in the stereo section and drool over gear I had to save my money for to buy. In 1983 I bought a Fisher Stereo system that had a receiver/amp, cassette player, turntable, and two speakers for $999.99 ($2600 today's dollars). I kept that setup until I moved into the house that I live in now. I finally got rid of it when I bought my first 5.1 system from Yamaha.
• Stereo Sofas!
• Columbia House - I ordered my records and never bought the minimum required each year.
• Circus Magazine - Self proclaimed Toughest, Timeliest, Gutsiest Magazine around. Circus was a monthly American magazine devoted to rock music. It was published from 1966 to 2006. In its heyday the magazine had a full-time editorial staff that included some of the biggest names in rock journalism.
• RCA Video Disc Player - Discs start at $15 and the player costs $500 back in 1981. The technology was from the late 60s but making it work in commercial form delayed it until 1981 which made it compete with the laser video disc. Which more or less killed this RCA Video Disc concept. By the way in today's dollars the player would cost about $1350. Discs would start at $42.50!
• Fred Rated (Shadoe Stevens)!! Federated Electronics Super Stores was a home electronics store in Southern California in the 70s and 80s.
• JC Penny had their own line of stereo equipment. MCS by JC Penny
• G.E. - The power of Music. Who would have thought??
• Magnovox had an extensive line of audio equipment.
• Pacific Stereo - A stereo shop in So Cal that had private listening rooms. May still be around but not the same ownership.
• Pioneer PL518 Turntable - $175 in 1978. In today's dollars it's worth $690. A used one in good shape on ebay is selling for $275
• Racquel Welch selling Motorola TVs Quasar II TVs 1970. 23 inch color console TV went for $600 in 1970 that is a whopping $3975 today!
• Marantz CD Player CD73 $649 in 1983 ($1665)
• Panasonic Dynamite 8 - 8-Track player. Looks like a plunger sounds like Dynamite. You can buy an original ad with Jimmy "Dynamite" Walker holding the player for about $100
• Zenith Hand Crafted Color TVs - Space command remote control tuning. The quality goes in before the name goes on!
• Sanyo - That's Life
• Kenwood Stereo - High Speed Circuity for cleaner sound

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