Pre-Tweeter / Post Tweeter
Growing up just outsde Chicago, a local store called United Audio Center was just a 10-15 minute bike ride away. I loved popping into that store on some occasions to look around. At the time I was mostly interested in car stereos and buying audio cassette tapes when I visited stores period. At United Audio Center I would briefly look into their HiFi selection of receivers and listen to whatever tunes were playing through them.
Then came the day when Dad said he'd go shopping with me to buy a receiver. This would begin to replace my Sears brand all in one system. Such a nice birthday preset that bulky thing was years before and the receiver was and a very nice birthday present to upgrade. Two things I read in middle school. Car magazines and stereo magazines. Although United Audio Center was a favored place to go, it wasn't my primary place. I went to the bigger chain stores and think how cool all those graphic equalizers looked on the receivers they sold. Having 5 was cool and some had seven on them. Dad and I perused and demoed many of them and me doing so with a very close ear.
I decided I wanted to give United Audio Center a try. Having only looked briefly on their receivers for a couple of years with my nonfrequent visits to their store. Giving their gear a closer look, I was stunned by the fact that their receivers had no graphic equalizers. NONE!!!
But having the sound quality of many other receivers sporting eqalizers on my mind, I gave a listen to a Yamaha. SOLD!!! I was taken into to warmth of the sound that receiver produced. I later bought Polk Audio shelf speakers from that store to further replace my once loved Sears all in one system. Although my Yaham's amplifier crapped out a years ago (about 25 years after I bought it) I still have my Polks running. (Boy have they really slid down in quality over the years; but I digress - another thread for another time).
My family moved further north and I was thrilled to have spotted another United Audio Center store on the way to Dad's work. When Tweeter bought them out, it didn't bother me. Nothing changed in the store. But then I was ready to buy a home theater system. Not having read stereo magazines since high school, I had no clue what Dolby Digital, DTS, etc. meant. I went to the local Tweeter store and, it totally sucked. My sales rep was a complete snob, always down talking any and all products NOT sold by Tweeter and not knowing diddly squat about things like using a separate amp to power two surround back speakers. I was nterested in the (then) new DVD-Audio format and he only grinned sourly and told me that he just likes stereo for music. I think that's fine; but I *WANTED* surround music in my house. He didn't help. I ended up buying the Denon 3801 receiver mainly because t was the only model I found that offered 7.1 surround as opposed to 5.1 or 6.1. Then Crutchfield proudly announced they would begin to sell Denon products about 6 months after my two visits with Mr. Badmouthelitesalesdork from Tweeter.
Anyhow, when Tweeter replaced Boston Accoustics with Polk, that was a bad sign for me. And Focus speakers (is that what they're called?), well, never did it for me. Tweeter had good televisions (I've yet ot get a high def. one) ad receivers; but things were clearly dwindling.
So I'm not shocked by Tweeters' demise; but it is sad that their downfall took some great stores with them.
