Kmart Blue Light Special Sparkomatic 6x9's from 1984
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- #sparkomatic #kmart #vintageaudio
Here's a Throwback amp from the late 1984 with these Sparkomatic KS2269 6x9 speakers right off the Blue Light Special Cart at Kmart. I even have the receipt to prove it!
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Man the first car audio I had was a set of sparkomatic 6x9s a Realistic eq/amp and a Roadmaster cassette player.
Back in the late 80s and I was 12yrs old. Little did I know they were a gateway drug that would lead to a lifetime car audio addiction.
yes, well put...they were a gateway drug..I am 57 years old, sitting in my cave with 60 plus vintage car amplifiers, from every American made legacy brand imaginable. I would like to hear the Sparkos with a decent amp. My first systems were Sparko, Kraco, Jenson, Craig...with a power booster/eq...and alternator noise...wish I knew then what I know now..peace Brother
Oh man so many memories.. I had MCI door speakers and a 40w booster in my 1985 camaro rust bucket. And one of my friends has your exact setup and awesome "ProPlus" subwoofers with an amplifier in his Nissan pulsar. It's nice to remember this.
@raymo6795 "alternator noise" Yeah, these 40W boosters were famous for it. You surely remember the kenwood pull out cassette radio and their Alpine counterparts?? The alpine were too expensive for me, so I had a kenwood, it was decent.
@@MarvinHartmann452 …I do remember those slide out units. I would go to a party and a bunch of the kids were carrying around their car stereo to prevent theft, then came the detachable face units. I bought an Eclipse because they would not work unless a specific cd was inserted, after the power was disconnected.( the disc I used was “ Seal , Crazy”). I remember trying everything to eliminate the alternator. Various chokes and filters etc. Then I tried hooking up direct to the battery, rather than tap a fuse…I think I used lamp wire…only to have a dead battery the next day. I learned a lot from the Crutchfield catalogs…I couldn’t believe they sent me those for free. I learned what was available, and bought my first quality amp, a Soundstream SA 120, which powered a pair of 6x9 Jensen Tri Ax. It sounded pretty good, it was the best I had to that date…but I had a bunch of booster/ eq’s. I would love to have a to have one Crutchfield catalog, of each year since they have been in business, that would be an interesting trip through time..Peace Brother ✌️
Realistic amp from radio shack
Take me back to the 80's! This should be video of the year. SPARKOMATIC, PYRAMID, AND VU METERS, all in one place. Love it. Great video 🔊🔊🔊😎
"Pro plus" subwoofers lol awesome
Don’t forget KRACO!
@@quiyaomah9 Craig was the super-premium if you had the money
love to see the mine blower 6 x 9 again.
@@quiyaomah9 just was looking through the comments and wow I forgot all about Kraco! I owned a few of them 6" X 9"s back in the day. They were completely unrated in my book. I had a set that survived my early teenage years up to when I got my first car. I switch them out with the stock 6" X 9"s in my first car and powered them with a small 50 watt Realistic amp from Radio Shack. Used them for like than for years. I definitely got my money's worth. I can't believe I completely forgot about Kraco. Thanks for stirring up the memory 🍻
Those Sparkomatic 6x9 speakers with the orange surrounds were the speakers the first time I felt bass in a car. They actually sounded pretty good when they have the whole trunk for an enclosure and decent power.
Pretty much all 6x9s need a trunk to play open baffle if you want any bass out of them. These boxes are not good if you aren't running them high passes at 80hz or so.
Agree the speaker boxes just won't give as good of sound as when they are installed in the rear deck using the trunk as a huge box. Would have liked to hear the same setup but with boxes tuned for lower bass.
How would gutting the trunk of all the carpets affect the sound? Just curious as my trunk is bare metal for weight reduction purposes. Never considered the effects it would have bass lol
Does that also mean that if you have a hatchback the speakers won't have the chance to produce as much bass?
@@Bradimus1i tried 6x9s in boxes. And yeah they sounded like absolute crap. Slap em in the rear deck. And bam. Perfect. .. oh man that old cadillac was nice... 1989 a sony cassette deck. Lear jet 100+100? Idk if it was actually 100 or 200 watt. That amp ran a set of 8 inch woofers that were drilled right into the rear deck. And then a set of 6x9s in the original holes. New front speakers and some door speakers added in (properly) just for bass up front. Like 6 inch woofer type. Dash was just mid/tweeter. And a PhaseLinear amp 200x4 running the rest. . Solid class A amp circuit. Massive size. Heatsinks. Class A runs hot cuz its always doing its thing. That Lear jet i think was A/B circuit. So it wasnt as bad. But that PL was the biggest fricken 200 watt amp i ever saw. . . That was a clean sounding system in that car. I forget the brands of all the speakers but i do seem to recall sparkomatic in there. . Honestly ive never had a gripe with the better line of spark-o-matic. .. like any brand they had good and bad. Just find the good stuff.
They definitely deserve a chance on some clean power.
Surprised no-one has commented on the eq settings yet, isn't most testing supposed to be done "flat"? Obviously these tests are more for fun than anything, but give em a fair shot 😂
If nothing else he's got the low end set too high, especially the 60 hz.
My first aftermarket system in my first car was a Kraco cassette deck with a pair of Sparkomatic 6x9's. It didn't sound too bad. I later added a 7 band eq to the system and it was a huge improvement. I still have the eq in a box somewhere. I can't remember the brand off hand. All this was in late 1989 early 1990. Around 1992 I really discovered the car audio scene and I've been poor ever since. 🤣🤣🤣
I had a realistic powered eq, when that thing died I almost cried
Probably the Craig Equalizer. I had the same one same time period with my Sparkys 6x9
@@TRDOffRoad2020 I don't think that was it but I could be wrong, but I did have one of them at one point. I'm gonna have to go dig for it here. I know I still have it somewhere, along with a bunch of other old car audio stuff from the 90's and early 2000's.
Mine was Audiovox head unit. MEI 6x9 + 6.5 door speakers. And a Pyramid PB 800 4 ch. amp.
I can totally hear the 10% THD out of that Pyramid "booster" amp. I'd totally love a full video on it to see how much power it actually puts out. The Sparkomatics would probably sound a little bit better if hooked up to a decent amp but it is still very cool to see them at all! Takes me back to the car audio sections of discount stores like K-mart or Venture and your average auto parts store back then!
Early H bridge chip amp, I'd guess 12-15W rms
The output chip is rated 7 watts per channel RMS when I was in high school electronics class back in the early 80s kids used to bring them to the class wanting to fix them would tell them to just buy a replacement because the replacement Chip cost you as much as another pyramid amp
That booster amp thing is crap, they hiss and farts on bass.. Probably can only do 20 watts or less using those cheap boombox chip amps.
Wow these exact speakers were my verry first audio up grade to my first car…. I rocked them for awhile lol….I had a buddy of mine a few years back give me a pair of the 6.5 3 way sparkomatic’s still brand new in the box and I still have them.
@@wesalbright9817Was it a TDA xxx chip? If so, they do were expensive back then. But for more power, you could by a MCI 100W channel amplifier which worked decent.
I can’t believe the surrounds are still in good shape!😮
its all about the storage environment
@@narmale or is it proof of time travel?…🤔🤣
@@defaultdriftco00 nope, in a humidity controlled environment the surrounds can last a long time
Sparkomatic was the first piece of car audio I owned. This was back when I was like 10 years old. I bought a set of 4" Sparkomatic door speakers from K mart. This was when they had the orange inverted foam suspension. Being that I was 10 years old, I promptly mounted them in a cardboard box and powered them with my boom box. I loved those things and used them for years in different enclosures. Definitely got my money's worth.
Lmfao, man you went way back with the cardboard box.. Good times , I had 4 tens in a cardboard box with 2 sparkomatic 6x9s ..🤣😅😭😂😅😅😅
@@waynejones4005 🍻 my man.
I figured I wasn't alone on this one. My first set of 6" X 9"s were Sparkomatic too. I got a piece of plywood from a friend's older cousin that had cutouts for 6" X 9"s. It was probably something like 3ft long by 1ft tall. I screwed the speakers to plywood and leaned it up against my bed with the back of the speakers under the bed. I inadvertently found out this basically turned the space under my bed into a big speaker box. I was only powering the speakers with a small amp (probably like 10 or 15 watts). But at that time it was impressive how much bass I couple get from some 6" X 9"s in a piece of wood leaning up against my bedframe. I think I was 12 or 13 years old at this point and thought I was the shit discovering this. It really was some good times learning (playing) with speakers as a kid.
My first set was a pair of 4 inch Jensen from k-mart.
Mounted to a piece of plywood I found next to the dumpster.
My mom let me put them in the back of her Datsun b210.
I think I was 10 years old.
Good times man.
@@pgboyinthehouse9041 I always liked Jenson back then. I just replied to another comment about Kraco if you remember them. Sparkomatic, Kraco, Jensen and Pyramid were the brands I used back in the late 80's & 90's. All were a good bang for buck.
You shot me back. Man, I had a '73 Nova with Sparkomatic speakers, Kraco radio, and a 20 watt booster. Wow! The 80s !
The ink on the receipt is incredible ! The new stuff just vanishes after a week 😅
It was real ink back then... now it's thermal paper.
You will find that's by design, especially when the receipt is required for returns or warranty purposes. Case-in-point: A friend worked for a certain big-name discount auto parts store that might begin with the letter "A." They were there when the company changed ink in all the printers to a specific blend that faded quickly - a maximum fade resistance of two years, regardless of UV, temperature, or humidity. They also noticed, by amazing coincidence, that the company now REQUIRED the receipt instead of a telephone number for warranty coverage - a policy it had previously used since the company's inception.
…or one squirt of freshener!
New receipts are thermal print.. old stuff had real ink
real ink bad for environment. blame the tree hugger
You may find that these speakers like a much larger enclosure. They were intended for trunk mounting which gives them an extended bass response you won't be able to get with out using so much power that you will have the voice coil over extend and burn up. Cool thing is it sort of works both ways so when you park and open the trunk the car interior becomes the baffle, Be gentle with them. The Sparkomatic 100w per channel chip amp will kill them before you need to reverse the tape.
6X9 revolutionized car audio. Amazing how good they sounded coming from a single center dash speaker.
God I loved being in a Kmart when they had Blue Light Specials! People would lose both of their minds!
Had a set of sparkomatic speakers in my car and they believe it or not were actually pretty decent sounding speakers
they were an upgrade to factory speakers.The sparkos in the video would sound decent with a decent amp
I'd love to hear those 6x9s with a clean amp. They're no Elacs, but they sounded a lot better than I expected even with the Pyramid booster.
Yes. This.
My brother is ALWAYS joking, asking me if I’ve added some Sparkomatics to the setup yet… lol. THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting this! I shared it with him. And this gives us something to bond over.. which can be challenging with an 11 year age gap. Still both gen-X weirdly enough..
My friends and I make jokes about stuff like that too. Pyramid, Sparks, and Realstic like Radio Shack.
We used wire home box speakers in ours cars. It actually worked. Got that extra bass. Put a amp to them it rock the neighborhood. This was back around 1988.
The very first thing I bought in car audio was a blue light special in 1988. It was a no name cassette playing AM/FM raidio. I thought I was balling so hard! 😂😂😂
My dad got a Sparkomatic cassette radio box set with the radio, two 6.5" coax speakers, two grilles, and wiring at Roses department store, and he installed them in his 1984 Chevette. When he bought the car new, it had no radio, and a plastic blank-off plate over the radio hole.
Would be cool to hear them on a decent amp, form back in the day, or current. To see what they could really do.
Man!!! My heart skipped a beat with this video!!! Loved all those brands. They kept me satisfied in car stereo and helped me love car stereo even more back in the day!!! Ty sir.
I hope someone has a set of the crickets 6x9s with green surrounds to be tested....those babies were the bomb
Hell yeah! Man, this brings back lots of memories of all the crappy brands of the 80s and 90s.
I love it!
Yes, those are the speakers I started my car audio journey, along with the 40 watt booster.
I had a set of those!
And yes I remember the dark grey almost black paper cones with orange surrounds. Almost matched Cerwin Vega colors.
That noise without signal really takes me back.
Wow, the audio equipment back in the 80s had so much better quality than today's junk. Man, how I want a time machine!
Takes me back,to the days a few of my friends knew how to hook these up Everybody was trying to get the loudest groove of music, many shopped at Kmart 😊❤
As teens we would buy from K-Mart or Service Merchandise, since we could put the stuff on layaway😅
Wow the memories this video has dug up! The amp/eq and vintage 6x9's we thought we had the moon! Thanks for sharing!
Good job bringing these to today's video This is so cool going down memory lane .Way back in the day
had a pair hooked up to the 40 watt Sparkomatic eq- booster with the green vu led green lights thinking we were audiophiles 😅
Bought the day before my 10th birthday. You really should've used a period cassette head unit to round out the retroness, though they probably sound marginally better by NOT using that EQ/booster. Also $50 seems like a LOT for a K-Mart sold speaker from that time.
My dad had some of those back in the day! Sounded decent in his Bronco
I used to have a set of Jensen Mind Blower 6X9's in my 68 Torino GT Fast back. I loved those speakers back in 1975. We didn't know what THD stood for, nor did we care. No subs, just 6X9's. I don't remember what they did as far as power is concerned, I think 60 watts, but it might have been 75. But we had 8 tracks, and FM. The good old days!!! Now what I am referring to is the nostalgia of them, not that they sounded good as far as today's stuff. But back then they were something. Cruising through the Sonic and playing Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane or the like.
I just text em, bout the TENNA MINDBLOWERS, HOOKED UP TO THEE, ORIGINAL ,PIONEER SUPERTUNERS, ROUND DIAL, KEF 7 OR 900, PIONEER TUNER / DECK ANDA SET OF 6X9 TENNA MINDBLOWERS..YOU HAD THEEE BEST 6X9s I've ever heard..
I remember those speakers from back in 83 when they were endorsing the Supertramp tour. We all bought those for our Datsun 510's
I have a bunch of Playboy magazines from the late 70s to 90s, and in one 83 issue, they mention the Supertramp sponsorship.
I had the same amp/speaker combo in a 1975 VW Beetle back then with a Pioneer SuperTuner radio/cassette unit. The rear speakers ran off the EQ, the front speakers, a pair of 5.25 Pioneer three ways in the doors, ran off the receiver. If it was anything, it was LOUD. Especially in that small car.
Buddy in high school circa 87 had a pair of these in his 72 Grand Prix. They were mounted at the rear glass and had the entire trunk space to use for the sub (no boxes). He had a decent amp for them. They actually sounded pretty damn good.
Awesome the old pyramid Eq, I had one hooked up to my kraco truck box speakers with a passive radiator. Vintage was in my 78 Ford courier
Back in the day that was all you needed. Some 6X9s and a power EQ. Good times. Simple things.
I was building enclosures for stuff like this for my friends older brothers before I was old enough to drive. I had a book on building speaker boxes & pops was a carpenter so I had all the tools. Beat the hell out of mowing yards!
Man, that Kmart receipt is so familiar. It took me right back to that era and the receipts I saw so many times as a kid.
I bought a set of these in 1984 and was shocked by the bass! Made my 78 T/A sound great ... Even when the motor wasn't running!
THOSE ACUALLY SOUND REALLY GOOD IN A BACK DECK WHERE THE BASS IS REALLY AMPLIFIED. THANKS BIG D. AWSOME VID. ALL I RUN ARE OLD SCHOOL EQS LIKE THAT ONE BECAUSE THE Q FACTOR ON THE BANDS ARE REALLY WIDE AND IT KEEPS THE SOUND FROM GETTING PEAKEY ON EACH BAND. THE BANDS RUN INTO ONE ANOTHER AND THAT KEEPS THE GRAPH SMOOTH WITH NO PEAKS.
@3:04 - I cannot even fathom the work that went in to making the mold set of that plastic grille. It makes my head spin.
That is some old school car audio gold! I had an old kraco 5 band eq booster in My 84 Honda accord 27 years ago! Love these old school videos D!
I had that same Kraco!! we bros!!
@@ksavage681 Ballin on a massive budget back then!
SPARKOSTATIC six-by-nines were similar to Roadmaster 6×9"s, which were also available at Kmart back in the day.
I had 4x10s in my 87 cutlass
Walmart also sold the Roadmaster brand for several years, they were okay... Not great, but they did the job... Then they went to selling Scorche
God, I remember having a Sparkomatic headunit and speakers in the mid 80's with my first car. A then 8 year old 1978 Rabiit. Great brand for those of us on a budget as 16 year olds with our first cars.
Big D going old old school for the old school stereo segment. My aunt had a car when I was a kid with spark 6x9 and one caught 🔥.
I remember the red surround version of these being sold everywhere. As a kid in high school I thought they looked cool but the fact that you could get them at K Mart defenitely put a stink on them. I needed 4 x 10s so I pulled the trigger on a pair of Audiovoxes instead 🤷♂️. Keep these coming big D.
5:17. THE ONLY ISSUE WITH THOSE BOXES IS. THEY ONLY GO DOWN TO 100HZ. TO GET THE 30 HZ THE SPEAKERS CAN DO. IS TO PUT ON A INFINITE BAFFLE AKA YOUR TRUNK DECK. OR IN 2CUFT BOXES PORTED TO 30 HZ
THE HISS IS FROM THE AMP CHIP INSIDE. THIS MODEL OF PYRAMID USES A THE CRAPPY SMALL AMP CHIP. WHEREAS ALL THE OTHER BOOSTERS USE THE NEC AMP CHIP AMD THE HISS ON THE NEC IS LESS
I had the exact same pyramid 200 watt power booster equalizer back in the 80s. Pioneer 3 way 6/9s with a 8in realistic woofer and two realistic horn tweeters, and Pioneer head unit. My system was loud and clear. No one else in three towns had anything that was as good as my system. Bass head 4 Life❤.
I remember installing my first car stereo in a 1974 Mustang II fastback Mach 1, and I had a set of Sparkomatic three way 6X9 speakers in the rear, and a pair of Kraco 5 and 1/4" three way round speakers in the doors! My "stereo" was a Sanyo under the dash mounted Cassette Tape Deck, and I had a Kraco Power Booster hooked into the system too, that DID NOT have the EQ feature, which the power booster/ EQ cost more money back then!! The year I did that install was back in 1982!! And the modern component amplifiers, crossovers, head units basically didn't really "exist" back then!! YES you could buy a decent stereo from manufacturers like Alpine, Pioneer, JVC, Clarion, and Sanyo, from a stereo shop! But a lot of us could only afford the Jensen, Kraco, Sparkomatic, Sound Design, Realistic (Radio Shack), and OTHER low budget stereo systems from Kmart, Sears and Jamesway! BESIDES those stores like Kmart had lay away, so you could put your COMPLETE stereo on lay away, pay for it weekly and have it in a month after it was paid off!! And the more money you put on your Lay Away bill the faster you could own your new stereo system!!
I had my share of that kind of audio equip back then. The hiss was just atrocious. We tried adding coils here and there to get rid of it but almost never could. Also, the alternator whine on that kind of gear was absolutely unbelievable and could not be removed.
Also... How cool to have an "echo control"!!!!!
I had a Sparkomatic cassette player with EQ and Sparkomatic three way speakers in my first car in 1981. Sounded fantastic back then.
Nice to see some Sparkomatic stuff 😎 have a lot of stuff collected over the past years made by them, both used and "new" in sealed boxes,
keep up the good work 🤘🔊
It's amusing and cool that the packaging was designed to show off the size of the magnets.
What a flashback! 6x9's were a bigger thing in the 80's! Thank's for taking us back!!! Cool stuff!!! Even the receipt ink was better back then. If that was a receipt from now it would fade away to nothing in no time. 😂😂😂😂
Memories 😢😂 my brother let me have his around 85 or 86 RIP brother 🕊️🕊️🕊️ I wired them up to a Clarion cassette deck I was tickled it they sounded good but the following year I got my first pioneer super tuner 3 keh 5252 and the rest was history 🤣 I still have my super tuner 😊 thanks for bringing back a great memory of my late brother ✌️
I had a pair of those in my 68 Mustang in the mid 70's. Those were excellent speakers back in the day, sounded great.
Rather shocked the foam surrounds are intact!
I suspect in better enclosures and a clean 40watt amp they would improve but I'm sure they ..won't.. sound stunning :D
I think that '200' watt booster needs a dyno.
I had a booster/EQ as well, made by TARGUS that I bought at Highland. It was adequate for the front JVC 5" speakers. With a TARGUS headunit and a "120" watt amp in the back and a 10" dual would paper cone Pyle Driver (Back when Pyle made ok stuff) it was decent but not earth-shattering. That sub stayed with me through 4 cars eventually being retired due to the sun destroying the surround.
Wow, I used to see those Sparkomatics in tons of older rides I worked on back in the 80's and early 90’s. Haven't seen them in quite some time now. Great trip down memory lane big D.
I had a similar setup way back then, but mine was 150 watts. We called that the ILS rating. it stands for "If Lightning Strikes"
I live in Connecticut. And I have not heard that store Nameen over at least 8 to 10 years. I loved that store. There is no more stores named K mart in Connecticut and it is a shame. That store was absolutely magnificent for clothing and other things
The speakers and especially the booster amp bought back the memory's ,,,,,brilliant 😂
I remember the days of seeing stacks of these boxes and others at flea markets. I was in the car audio industry from 1989 to current, and my how things have changed.
I had some 1982 6x9” Sparkomatics trunk mounted back in the day. The bass response was much better than the usual go to speakers of the day, Jensen 6x9s. Many of my friends were surprised by the sound of the Sparkomatics. The woofer foam surrounds eventually gave up the ghost. I wish I still had them.
Hey, Those Sparkomatic 6X9's were definitely better than ANY OEM 6X9's in 1984.
Awesome Video. As a kid who went through his teens in the 1980's I can relate. I saved for weeks to get a set of Infinity 6x9 3 way speakers that I paid $180 for in like 1983. Fantastic sounding in my 1974 charger. I still have my very first stereo set up: Sony STR-V1 receiver, Technics 3 way speakers, and and Technics direct drive turn table. They all still work. Things were just built better back then.
I'm trying to save up to buy some 6.5 inch kicker cs speakers for I can build my own hifi system from car audio at home
I was 8yo when someone bought these...lol I was shocked at the weight too.
I'm old enough to remember Sparkomatic gear! They had a whole line of stereo stuff!
This really takes me back. I remember the best 6x9s were Kricket (Lime Green) and Jensen (Blue). And I also remember the Sparkomatic being (Red). In reality, they were all about the same. LOL And of course, it was all wired up with 24 gauge speaker wire either included or from Radio Shack.
I bought Sparkomatic 6x9's with the orange surround, for the rear deck of my 1965 Plymouth Valiant. I had a Learjet auto reverse AM/FM/ Cassette and Kraco 7 band EQ/40 Wpc. Power booster..it all sounded pretty darn good.
Also, my first car was a 1990 Ford Festiva with cold AC and an automatic transmission that my grandmother bought me for my 16th birthday. I didn't care that it was ugly, I was just pumped to have a car. I put a Sony Xplod tape deck in it with a Sony 10-disc CD changer and a Blaupunkt 12" sub, but I didn't have an amp, so I found a Pyramid 150 watt bass booster and it sounded terrible. I even custom installed a set of MB Quart split sets in the dash and MB Quart 2 way 6.5" speakers in the doors.
Yeah my first radio in a 67 GMC pickup that my Dad and I restored when I was 15 (circa 1981?) had a Kraco cassette and two sparkomatics that were like 3" round in their own little enclosure that I mounted to the back of the cab between the two Leatherette Buick Park avenue electric seats that Dad had installed. :) Kmart was a great source for me since my Dad was a mgr at Kmart here. I got a NICE set of BFG TA wide whitewall tires in the style of the time the were wide ovals.
The best 2-shaft head unit i ever saw was made by Concord. This thing was incredibly advanced for its time. Infiniti Kappa, Alpine 7909, Orion HCCA, Precision Power, pull-out head units, soundstream.....
Random comment from days long gone by an installer who still has install. Manuals for Clifford alarms long before DEI bought them.
You just had the exact same setup I used to have in my 1983 Pontiac Bonneville! I'm having flashbacks, thanks big D!
My first setup was the Sparkomatic Loud and Clear 6x9 and a little power booster - this reminded me of those good old days 😊
Great old speakers and sweet old amp/eq… thanks for the demo. Took me back to my childhood.
Man, first stereo as a kid was sound design, kmart 1980 with cassette and 8 track integrated with 3 way speakers. Great stuff as a kid.
I was was a Junior in high school in 1984. Those days we made $3.35 pr hr.. those were top of the line and pricy for a teen my age at the time for my 75 ford maverick .. Those were my dream speakers.
My first radio was a sparkomatic tape deck that was purchased at a Scotchman gas station. Picked up a couple speakers and a Eq booster. Boy sure thought we had something back then 😂 We didn’t have audio shops anywhere to buy anything back then. You used home stereo speakers whatever you could get. But man those were some fun times
My dad had the complete setup from Sparkomatic in his Ford Fairmont. It really didn't sound all that bad considering the price.
My dad put this type setup in his thunderbird. Sounded good enough. Cheers
I love the three icons on the speaker face to show it's a 3-way 😄
Today's car audio systems can make those speakers sound a lot better than back then.
INSTALLED THOSE IN MY MOTHERS FORD MAVERICK BACK IN 1987 WITH A KENWOOD TAPE DECK VERY GOOD SOUND
Oh Lordy, LOL! I had completely forgotten Sparkomatic. I had one of their radio/cassette decks and speaker sets in a 1978 Jeep CJ5 back in the late '80's because they were CHEAP. The speakers were surface mounts with brackets, so I ran hose clamps through the brackets and mounted them to the rollbar behind the front seats of the Jeep. As most of the time I had the top and the doors off I was never really worried anyone would steal them. The whole system altogether may have been 50 bucks, but hey, it was better than the single speaker AM radio the Jeep came with, lol.
I had a set of those orange ones. A friend of mine had a pair Kricket brand they green and black 6x9's they where pretty Amazing on clarity aroind 1985 ish. then I had a couple of pairs of pioneer 6906 and 6907. those rocked. oh ya Don't forget the jensen tri axles And jensen axles 2's. then went to sony 6x9's in 88. Using sony radios and pioneer supertuner 2's and 3's tape decks with old jensen 100 x100 watt amp with glass fuses for power and speaker protect wish i still had. good times back in the day 🤘🏁🏁🤘
OMG😂These are the very speakers that made me seek out better sound for my ride when I started driving!First pair of speakers I ever bought for my 1968 Ford F100 and can’t have those without the Realistik Amplified EQ😂
Wow, my dad had a set of these and a set of I think 4x6s along with an AM FM cassette spark-O-Matic system in a 1982 S10... We had that truck all the way up until like 2004 or 2005 I think, when Dad finally drove it to the scrap yard..
That's hilarious 😂😂, 1984 i was a senior!! We blowed up everything in our cars!!!! Awesome video BIG D!!!
@Oldschoolstereo- My friend had 2- pairs of the orange surround, 400 watt, 4-way sparkomatic, or pyramid 6x9s. We ended up making a sealed enclosure, with poly fill stuffing, that was around 2 cu. Ft., and put 1- pair in the that sealed enclosure, and put it behind the back seat(used just for the bass, low-passed) and 1- pair installed properly in the rear deck of his fairmont (used for the full range). He had a small amp on them, and we were blown away by how much bass they had, it rattled his trunk, and would shake all of his mirrors! No one believed it was just (4)- 6x9's! I would love to build a custom Aero-ported enclosure for (4)- modern quality, 6x9 components, powered with a Quality Sq amp, installed in a hatchback! It would be interesting to see if it could do a 140Db!?
My first 6x9 speakers were, Mindblowers by Tenna. They had a 150 watt amp built on the back of the speaker, with a wired remote for volume and on/off. Those bad boys would rock!
Good ole 80's spark-o-static speakers, and the pyramid amp/equipment, got to love em. Went through guite a few of those in the 80's, lol.
I remember that amp-eq, I am glad it worked for you. That amp is a 4 channel amp “50” watts per channel lol more like 10 watts per channel, the sliders and front rear pot will need to be cleaned. That amp-eq was new old stock never used.
My first car I put in Sparky 6 x 9s with Sparky deck. First song I cranked out was Once Bitten Twice Shy by Great White. Memories!
Great video…..love the old school stuff brings back such memories for me
I really like seeing that equipment from the 80"s
some of the old stuff was good back in the day
Awesome brother I installed a pair of sparkomatic on my brother's 79 trans am with the stock radio boy they sounded 100 times better then stock speaker after that he would listen to his music with a smile
the fact that theres a spring reverb packed into that lil head unit is nuts. i wonder how itd fair as an amp for a guitar, i use to run my guitar through some weird stuff like cassette tape recording machines and an old vinyl player setup we had back in the day
I think I still have mine kicking around, although not as in good condition. I had them in a 1972 Ford Galaxie that I bought in 85. Of course, Fords are known for bass response and that big giant deep trunk was perfect for these. No subwoofer needed!
I also had one of those booster ramps and I hated it because that was nothing but distortion. When I got rid of the cheap flea market radio, I bought a good Panasonic and improved the sound greatly just using the head unit.
I love those lights on the EQ back then as a kid. And still do. Lol
That receipt is an artifact along with the items. May 3, 1984 was a Thursday. That identifies a specific point on the timeline. 1:43 PM I'd have been getting ready to go into work; typically that is. From the last few days of April '84 through the end of the first week of May I had the flu real bad. I'd relapsed that last day of April (a Monday) and the plant nurse sent me home with a fever over 101°. That's why that week sticks out. I stayed home that whole first week of May. I hadn't thought of that in a long, long time.