Do you miss Radio Shack and Fry's? I sure do!

[MR.MAGOO]

So I was hooking up my gear to the "new" receiver, and broke the friggin' optical output on my Marantz CD player, now the Toslink cable will not snap in securely.. So if I want digital out I need a coax digital audio cable. The local Best Buy (1 mile away), does not have them in stock BUT they can order it for pickup in a week. That place is a huge warehouse but apparently they don't keep things in stock. I'm willing to bet if Radio Shack or Fry's were still around I can get what I need today! So to get by I'll use RCA analog, maybe need to learn to use the blu-ray player as a CD player too. End of Rant!

 

[Pogre]

You should order one from eBay...

 

[Eppie]

What I miss is Radio Shack carrying parts. If this were 1990 you could buy a replacement Toslink socket and repair it. Good luck with that now. You'd be best off finding a cheap DVD player at a thrift shop and cannibalizing it for parts if you don't want to go coax. That's assuming the socket is standardized.

 

[slipperybidness]

In general, there is nothing special about a digi coax cable, other than the 75ohm spec.

Yeah, I miss both RatShack and Frys. To be fair, I had not been in Frys in a few years, so I was part of their decline.

I also miss the old school RatShack Catalog!

 

[Trebdp83]

So I was hooking up my gear to the "new" receiver, and broke the friggin' optical output on my Marantz CD player, now the Toslink cable will not snap in securely.. So if I want digital out I need a coax digital audio cable. The local Best Buy (1 mile away), does not have them in stock BUT they can order it for pickup in a week. That place is a huge warehouse but apparently they don't keep things in stock. I'm willing to bet if Radio Shack or Fry's were still around I can get what I need today! So to get by I'll use RCA analog, maybe need to learn to use the blu-ray player as a CD player too. End of Rant!

Now the real fun begins. Does the CD player sound better with an analog connection than the blu-ray player with a digital connection?

 

[Verdinut]

What I miss is Radio Shack carrying parts. If this were 1990 you could buy a replacement Toslink socket and repair it. Good luck with that now. You'd be best off finding a cheap DVD player at a thrift shop and cannibalizing it for parts if you don't want to go coax. That's assuming the socket is standardized.

Here in the greater Montreal area and Laval, we have several stores carrying parts. I know it's handy to be able to visit a local store where you can see what they stock.

As an alternative, you and I have both Allied Electronics and Digi-Key (Cdn branch) online. I have bought from both firms which have a lot of stuff and an excellent reputation. Digikey is the more complete place:

https://www.alliedelec.com/

DigiKey Electronics Home

Digi-Key offers millions of products from thousands of manufacturers, many in-stock quantities available to ship same day. Apple Pay, Google Pay™ & Paypal accepted, order online today!

www.digikey.ca

For raw speaker drivers and passive crossover components, Solen is the place. They make excellent capacitors which TLS Guy and I use and they manufacture about the best air core inductors. Even Parts-Express sell their products while Solen sell some of theirs as well, including Dayton speakers::

Solen

Last Month up to 1500+ Products Sales From these categories. You can choose a product from here and save money.

solen.ca

 

[lovinthehd]

Never used Radio Shack or Fry's a whole lot, but then I wasn't into electronic kit building much either. I do remember the pre-Radio Shack Tandy stores, tho

 

[Replicant 7]

Back in the day, small town I live in that's all we had was Radio Shack, and a few private owner stores. But yeah I use to go by no less than a few times a month.

 

[shadyJ]

Microcenter is a pretty good alternative to radio shack and fry's, if you are lucky enough to live near one.

 

[Eppie]

Here in the greater Montreal area and Laval, we have several stores carrying parts. I know it's handy to be able to visit a local store where you can see what they stock.

As an alternative, you and I have both Allied Electronics and Digi-Key (Cdn branch) online. I have bought from both firms which have a lot of stuff and an excellent reputation. Digikey is the more complete place:

https://www.alliedelec.com/

DigiKey Electronics Home

Digi-Key offers millions of products from thousands of manufacturers, many in-stock quantities available to ship same day. Apple Pay, Google Pay™ & Paypal accepted, order online today!

www.digikey.ca

For raw speaker drivers and passive crossover components, Solen is the place. They make excellent capacitors which TLS Guy and I use and they manufacture about the best air core inductors. Even Parts-Express sell their products while Solen sell some of theirs as well, including Dayton speakers::

Solen

Last Month up to 1500+ Products Sales From these categories. You can choose a product from here and save money.

solen.ca

I've used both Digikey and Solen, but Digikey pricing favours large quantity orders, not a few singles. We have a couple of small electronic supply shops in London locally run, but supply is hit and miss. My regular supplier would order any quantity but they have since closed shop. Now left with two shops where the owners look like they are retired or just hobbyists and can't stock a large inventory.

Digikey has a huge inventory. It can be hard to find exactly what you want sometimes. Knowing the right search terms is a big help. I haven't dealt a lot with Solen yet. Got my Umik-1 from them. I've been looking at ordering speaker kits from Meniscus but have not yet had the time to see if Solen carries the same drivers. Would certainly save on shipping and not have to worry about the exchange rate.

I do miss Radio Shack, though, because there was a time when they carried a variety of resistors, caps, transistors, op-amps, fuses... Now The Source is just another consumer electronics shop, not much different from the other big box stores. Canada Computers has an ok supply of computer parts and their cables are half the cost of Best Buy. Not Monoprice cheap, but if I want something in a hurry it's not silly expensive.

I have not tried Allied but bulbspro.com has a lot more than just bulbs... transformers, breakers, fuses, motors, switches... big selection of electrical supplies.

 

[Verdinut]

I've used both Digikey and Solen, but Digikey pricing favours large quantity orders, not a few singles. We have a couple of small electronic supply shops in London locally run, but supply is hit and miss. My regular supplier would order any quantity but they have since closed shop. Now left with two shops where the owners look like they are retired or just hobbyists and can't stock a large inventory.

Digikey has a huge inventory. It can be hard to find exactly what you want sometimes. Knowing the right search terms is a big help. I haven't dealt a lot with Solen yet. Got my Umik-1 from them. I've been looking at ordering speaker kits from Meniscus but have not yet had the time to see if Solen carries the same drivers. Would certainly save on shipping and not have to worry about the exchange rate.

I do miss Radio Shack, though, because there was a time when they carried a variety of resistors, caps, transistors, op-amps, fuses... Now The Source is just another consumer electronics shop, not much different from the other big box stores. Canada Computers has an ok supply of computer parts and their cables are half the cost of Best Buy. Not Monoprice cheap, but if I want something in a hurry it's not silly expensive.

I have not tried Allied but bulbspro.com has a lot more than just bulbs... transformers, breakers, fuses, motors, switches... big selection of electrical supplies.

Talking about bulbs, Did you notice that it's now getting hard to find incandescent bulbs? I was looking for those 40w equivalent candelabra based bulbs for the bathroom. They sell for something like $17 for two, a real robbery!
I will try to get some from a Laval hardware store which recently stocked some incandescent ones.

By the way, Canadian Tire sell their own Noma brand of LED bulbs. I bought some last year but they don't last, so I decided to look for some other brand, such as Philips or GE.

 

[MR.MAGOO]

Found what I needed after all at the local Best Buy, apparently their web site is not current with what's in the actual brick 'n' mortar store!

 

[MR.MAGOO]

Now the real fun begins. Does the CD player sound better with an analog connection than the blu-ray player with a digital connection?

I connected the CD via Digital Coax since I broke the friggin' Toslink optical jack on the Marantz player. Been testing all the connections so have not checked if blu-ray is better sound. Probably will be.

 

[Trebdp83]

So no analog vs. digital fun? Just hook it all up, ALL OF IT!

 

[Eppie]

Talking about bulbs, Did you notice that it's now getting hard to find incandescent bulbs? I was looking for those 40w equivalent candelabra based bulbs for the bathroom. They sell for something like $17 for two, a real robbery!
I will try to get some from a Laval hardware store which recently stocked some incandescent ones.

By the way, Canadian Tire sell their own Noma brand of LED bulbs. I bought some last year but they don't last, so I decided to look for some other brand, such as Philips or GE.

Yes, the local Copps Buildall only had a few 4 foot flourescents. I wanted to replace 8 halogens in the recroom with LED and also get bulbs for the under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen. The recroom uses small PAR bulbs and only Bulbspro had them in LED format. No bulb failures so far.

 

[highfigh]

Radio Shack has a store finder on their website and yes, they still have many open locations.

 

[highfigh]

Talking about bulbs, Did you notice that it's now getting hard to find incandescent bulbs? I was looking for those 40w equivalent candelabra based bulbs for the bathroom. They sell for something like $17 for two, a real robbery!
I will try to get some from a Laval hardware store which recently stocked some incandescent ones.

By the way, Canadian Tire sell their own Noma brand of LED bulbs. I bought some last year but they don't last, so I decided to look for some other brand, such as Philips or GE.

You're aware that incandescent are on the way out, right?

 

[davidscott]

Microcenter is a pretty good alternative to radio shack and fry's, if you are lucky enough to live near one.

Agreed. I had access to all 3 when I lived in DFW. Still have my Infinity Primus speakers that I bought at Frys.

 

[Verdinut]

You're aware that incandescent are on the way out, right?

Yes, I've been aware for years! You save on electricity consumption and what you're saving will never cover increased costs with the new bulbs.

 

[marticus]

In the UK, we had Maplins.

I bought my first 5.1 system there back somewhere around 21 years ago.

It was an unbranded Chinese htib with a dvd player, I set that thing up, slapped in saving private Ryan and that was it. The end for me,