Concept 11.0 Receiver from Pacific Stereo their in-house brand competing against Pioneer, Sony, etc.
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2024
- Pacific Stereo was THE place to go for a system at the peak of the silver face stereo wars. While they were mostly located in California, they opened locations in TX, IL, GA and other states. Being such a success, they had their own branded electronics made, one in high regard is the Concept line which included a series of receivers, but also a cassette and turntable.
Video: • Concept 11.0 Receiver ...
Email: stereoniche@gmail.com
Oh my goodness! I hung out at Pacific Stereo, gee you bring back the old days! They used to let me in the "Very Best" room Did I dream!! Thank you this was special! I just found you and you are becoming a favorite.
Welcome aboard! Take a look at other videos. If you want a trip down memory lane, look for some of the videos that review old audio ads. You will see MANY brands/models you looked at in Pacific Stereo.
From what I could find Pacific liked to bundle the Concept receivers with speakers and a turntable to give the customer a ready to use set. I found an ad from the June 22, 1977 LA Times. Pacific offered the Concept 11 with a set of Infinity Quantum 4 Speakers, and a Sony PS-3300 turntable fitted with a Stanton 680EE. List price for the set was $1299.00.
I worked for Pacific Stereo in the early’80’s on Oak Street in Chicago! Great store and I was selling all kinds of brands! It was my first foray into selling hifi and we had gotten the first CD players by Phillips! Also first place I had worked that used a computer system where we could see inventory as well as profit margins! Fun time to grow up! I was 19 years old!
Well, you certainly had a University of Stereo education right out of the gate! :-)
@@stereoniche it was so much fun learning and honing my listening prowess! I have an all analog system with the exception of a CD player! I also have two vintage turntables a Yamaha PX-3 and a Technics SL1610 MKII both from the mid-80’s and a pair of ‘77 Cornwalls that are thrilling to listen to!
@@primeanalogrecords Nice gear!
I loved Pacific Stereo. Do not remember Concept brand, but I bought my 2nd Dual turntable there. I still have both and I still use them. Our store was in Fresno, CA.
Very underrated brand in general
I remember the Concept receivers well at Pacific Stereo. They boasted impressive specs and seemed to be well made.
I used to go to Pacific Stereo all the time just to drool over all the speakers and electronics there. I dreamed of having a pair of JBL L100 Centurys but couldnt afford them at the time.
I bought my concept 11.0 new when I was in eighth grade maybe and still have it to this day. It still works great. I have not had any problems with it in that amount of time. And I love it. The only problem is it some point in time my face plate got a crack in it. Other than that it’s in perfect condition and it is in my guest room for friends to use when they stay over. I still have my Quadra flex speakers as well that came with it.
Thanks for sharing! I hope to find some Quadraflex gear at some point.
I am fortunate to own the 16.5 and it is an incredible sounding, monster receiver in near mint condition. I have a collection of highly regarded vintage receivers and this is the last one I would sell. Richard Schramm who later went on to found Parasound was integral to the development of the Concept line of receivers. These are highly collectible and relatively rare. Anyone interested in finding out more can go online as there is some interesting information that people may want to discover. Thank you very much for this review. I very much enjoy your channel.
Thanks Allan!
I remember Pacific Stereo from the seventies that was up the street from Music Craft, Playback Stereo two doors down(the Licht paint store still there in between), and directly across the street from Playback, Midwest Hifi. All of them in Oak Park, IL, within a mile of my home. There were quite a few stores in Chicagoland and some of the best people in audio here got their start. The seventies was the heyday of the audio system explosion and everyone I knew in high school and I mean all of my friends owned real stereo systems back then. I always get a chuckle from some CZcamsr reviewing, waxing poetic about Crosley's or Victrola's(same thing), things that look like what my baby sister would have played on. Like the other stores had back then, the locked room with a glass door where the good stuff lay, in there I heard for the first time a four-channel open reel tape on a Teac (3340?) deck, Santana's Caravanserai through Phase Linear 700 amps, I think two of them, an Auto correlator preamp going, to four pairs of Advent speakers, d'appolito style. It changed my life and I still, own a copy of that record I bought back then in great shape plus a newer Speakers Corner copy that I'm not convinced sounds altogether better. Then we listened to Led Zeps Physical Graffiti, "In The Light". We were going to see them live around the same time. We paid fifteen bucks for a ticket that had a face value of seven-fifty which I thought was outrageous. How times have changed. That was a period in my life that I don't think can be replicated today.
Sadly, no, those times are in the rearview mirror. I always felt like I was in a high end exotic car dealership when I would visit the High End Audio stores in my city. Even though they never said anything to me, I was very cautious to not touch anything so I could admire all the cool gear without being asked to leave. It was typically playing, so I had no need to do anything to it anyway, I just wanted to hang out as long as possible and daydream about having such a system one day while feeling like I was in a concert. Those back rooms were always dimly lit with ambiance to focus on the sound, but the cool gear would stand out with their cool meters, etc.. Ahhh, memories.
In the 1970's Pacific Stereo was the place I purchased all my stereo equipment, which I still have today, but I didn't know they had their own brand.
Several in-house brands actually, but that was the idea, to make them seem like every other brand in the store except those brands gave them more margin.
When I was stationed in Long Beach and San Diego and for a short time in Mare Island, I used to go to Pacific Stereo stores and drool over the high powered receivers. This was in the 70s during the "Receiver Wars". I also saw my first ever seven foot tall speakers. I think they were Infinitys. I bought my first cassette deck there, a Teac. Great memories Scott!
Being focused on Stereo, I bet they had every cool offering of the day. In my neck of the woods, they local shops typically carried only a handful of brands, so you had to go to multiple stores to see all offerings.
At my work our neighbors was moving and threw out all their office stuff including a Concept 2.5 reciever we went dumpster diving and found it then we tried it out ,replacing the Sony avr surround sound system,WOW! What a quality 25 watt sounds like. Very clean and clear,impressive!
I visited Pacific Stereo many times in the 70s. I looked at buying the Concept 16.52 receiver, but they did not seem to be able to get them. They tried to sell me an 11.0. But eventually I bought a Kenwood KR-9600 from one of their competitions instead (still have it). Furthermore, I also remember looking at the Concept cassette decks at Pacific Stereo as well.
According to the 1990 Orion Audio Blue Book the 11.0 receiver has sold from 1977 to 1982 with an MSRP of $655.
I have been trying to get an Orion for reference. Thanks for the confirmation!
I have a 4 trak player from concept as well as some speakers that I sold a few years back. There ia a concept turntable as well 2QD was the name
Concept receivers were very well engineered, have long
life expectancy, are easy enough to repair, and sound great.
The main reason I don't care to own any is their cosmetics,
especially the sharp-cornered pushbuttons that sometimes get stuck in their apertures.
If you run across one in good condition that is for sale, grab it before you miss out.
They do seem to be a bit bland on the aesthetics side.
Very unique design with the dual headphone jacks and the right side power switch. I like the layout.
My very first high-end came from Pacific Stereo. I just had to have an Empire 598. Took a lot of money for me. It has lived p to it's advertising line, "A silent giant that is built to last...probably forever" Well mine still is going except a belt or light bulbs no service.
Belts/lights are just regular maintenance for those tables. Like plugs and oil for a car. :-)
Ed Hanlon will probably chime in sometime soon, he absolutely knows everything about realistic radio shacks history of who made what.
That would be great! I've always seen multiple manufacturers mentioned for their gear. If someone could identify what manufacturer made which model, that would be fantastic.
Alas the pacific stereo I used to go to in San Francisco turned into a Mel’s drive in restaurant. Minus the car hops on roller skates.
Well, at least you can get a milkshake and pretend you are at a Pacific Stereo store. :-)
Mine was in Hayward!
Pacific Stereo was big in the Houston area during the 1970’s. They had a big competitor with the same store type concept. I can’t recall the name of it though. It may have been “CMC Stereo” or something like that; maybe not.
I used to love to go into Pacific Stereo. Looking back, I find all of the carpeted shelves (as I remember them, but may be mistaken) with just tons of stereo gear. It was a great store and concept for the time. The stores were not very big at all though, at least in the Houston area.
Great video Scott. I purchased my 11.0 new in 1977 and it us still going strong. I've also collected all the Concept receuvers except the 2.0 ( still looking for a clean one ) along with the two cassette decks, the turntable and two of the Concept speakers. My good friend worked for Pacific Stereo as a service manager and trainer back in the day. The history of the company and it's downfall is fascinating, someone should write a book about it. I would love to get your impression of your 11.0 and talk to you about it. Oh, and I love your channel and the work you do, thanks.
Thanks Bill! I think the 11.0 is kind of the sweet spot, just enough power to run 95% of speakers, but not the TOTL so it is a relative bargain cost wise.
I worked for Pacific Stereo in Chicago. The chain was purchased by CBS in the late 1970's, not in the 1960's. The Concept private label line was Pacific's "high-end" line, that was an addition to several other private label lines we sold. Those other lines were Quadraflex, Transaudio, and Calibre. The Concept line included large floor standing speakers made by ESS, which featured the ESS Heil Air Motion Transformer tweeter. You should know that we salepeople at the time had a low opinion of all of the private label products - or "prop", as it was called internally by Pacific - that we had to sell. We had to sell a certain percentage of "prop" every month to stay employed. And, we got cash incentives for selling prop, which were called "spiffs". Ironic that people such as you are resurrecting the "prop" that we sneered at back in the day. So naive.
I still have a Calibre and it works.
Often, the test of time defies the opinion of the day. No matter what the sales people thought of the private label Concept brand, the market thinks otherwise and there is no indication that will change as many have denoted here. Had they been unreliable or had degraded sound quality, they would have all found their way to the landfill like others that fit that description.
I worked at Pacific Stereo in California in 79-80. There was also a proprietary brand called Reference.
They also offered the CE-H headphones(which I am a very happy owner of) and CE-1,2 and CE-H speakers. The speakers were designed for concept by ESS. If anyone is selling any please let me know lol
So it seems they pretty much had a full line of stereo products. I don't think anyone has confirmed a reel to reel.
They were built by Tandy CBS Radio Shack. Look at the insides and back panel. Looks very Realistic
Well, that's just it. Realistic receivers were not made by Tandy, they were mostly made by Foster (Fostex), as well as Pioneer and others. While Tandy had some board manufacturing, I am not aware they were able to make receivers which is why Fostex seems more plausible.
Radio Shack, as did many other brands, contracted with various sources in Japan, Taiwan,
and other Far East locales to produce equipment that met specific price points.
Look at an RS catalog from any year between 1975 and 1990. No two receivers in it look alike!
That's one factor that kept me from respecting Realistic audio components for a long time.
A curious thing recently came to light for me: In the 1970s, Soundcraftsmen offered
two receivers, the 2000 and the 3000. I noticed strong similarities between those
and the Harman/Kardon 330 and 630 of the same era.
Turns out those two Soundcraftsmen models had been 'lifted' from HK, made by the same OEM source(s).
No surprise, and the overall quality is very good, so I have no complaint.
Pioneer never made equipment for any other brand and so stated quite firmly to the public at least once.
That does not prevent other stuff from looking similar.
Correct, Pioneer DID NOT make radio shack receivers. They did some with the black plastic crap series from late 1990's but not the 70s silver face. Kenwood did make one realistic quad receiver. But for the most part Tandy had Foster and other in-house brands make their stuff
. It's time to put this pioneer nonsense to rest.😅 Also, pioneer did not challenge realistic in court on their toroidal transformer. Radio shack used who they could find for their power transformers as well as other passive and active components . Pioneer did not sue them. It's funny how one rumor gets started and it just runs like crazy.
@@danielknepper6884 So let's kill that rumor now, no more Pioneer for Realistic! :-) I assume your reference to the Pioneer lawsuit is in regard to the STA-2100 to STA-2100D change? Going forward, I will just say that Realistic used "Multiple" manufacturers for their models and leave it there as that is really the main point. It would be nice to have a definitive list of what manufacturer made what model, but thus far, I don't think anyone has been able to produce such documentation.
@@stereonicheyes sir, you are correct. The pioneer rumor and then that lawsuit regarding the power transformer just gets old after a while😅. The other rumor that gets old is the s t a 2200 was the first realistic receiver to use mosfets. That is not true either quadraflex receiver was the first to use mosfets. And of course we all know quadraflex was built by Tandy RadioShack for the most part.
I have had Marantz 2010, 2040, 2265b,2330. and 2385, Mcintosh MC250, Sansui Au and tu 919.. The Concept Sound better in my opinion.... I love it..
I bought a 4.5 Concept new in 1977 and returned it because the FM tuner was not very good. The reception was lousy. (My neighbors had Marantz and Pioneer receivers that had better reception.) I tested the 5.5 and found that its tuner was much better, so I paid $60 - $70 extra and exchanged the 4.5 for the 5.5. The sound quality was also much better with the 5.5. The technician working at Pacific Stereo told me that the tuner for the 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5 is basically the same, and the 5.5 and 6.5 share circuitry of the 11.0 and 16.5 but with a 4 gang tuner instead of the 5 gang tuner found in the 11.0 and 16.5. So if you're looking to buy one of these in 2024, I would avoid the lower wattage Concepts. The 5.5 and 6.5 are probably the best bang for the buck.
I wish Pacific Stereo was still around today now that I have adult money to spend. 😢
Probably a LOT of others feel the same way. Sadly, a bygone era.
I bought that receiver from pacific stereo in 1979 on the southside of Chicago. I’m pretty sure it was right off of Route 30 in Richton Park but not positive. Seems like I paid $700 for it brand new also the concept speakers with the heil motion, transformer. Probably not spell correctly but it had a 10 inch subwoofer tennis woofer and the transformer which produced amazing sound. Thanks just reminiscing I gave my stereo equipment away before I moved to Tennessee and now I’m kicking myself I have DCM time frames DCM time windows the concept, 11.0, infinity cap at eight speakers And other speakers, I just gave them all away. I’m the stupidest person on earth. 😩
LOL, well, don't kick yourself too hard, we would ALL love the chance to undo quite a few things from our past. The good news is that you CAN re-acquire old vintage gear though. 🙂
Now I’m awake I see all my voice typos 😂 I won’t even edit the comment, concept had some excellent speakers. They still worked when I gave them away the foam need a replacement, but I remember they had an adjustment for the mid range and high end for the ribbon type midrange and high end and cool little LED, red and green lights which were pretty neat back then.
I think they were 699.00////
Had the 16.5, 2-11.0, 12.0D. 11.0 sounded better than the 16.5
Interesting. Many who have had the opportunity to hear several models within a line often recommend the upper tier brethren over the TOTL model. For example, the Pioneer SX-1280 over the SX-1980. Thanks for commenting.
I am not a fan of those giant late 70's receivers. I find the less known late 60's early 70's low wattage solid state receivers to be very nice, and much cheaper.
The late 60's era had some great units and they are typically much less expensive, agree.
@@stereoniche I think (only think, I don't really know) that the early solid state was designed by older tube amp designers and they tried to make them sound like tube amplification but as the decade went the newer engineers/designers started looking at power rather more than sound. I could be wrong though, I often am😅
I'm right there! I'm **loving** the low power end of vintage audio. I've had a Pioneer SX-434 since it was given to me in 1979 (I was 14), along with a PL-10 turntable and pair of Ohm Model E 2-way speakers. It's only been recently since I got into "vintage audio" that I learned it's a low powered, entry level model. The whole set is entry level. I never knew that. Never cared. I always loved it, it sounds good, plenty loud, I rarely go past about 1/4 of the Volume knob travel. And for considerably less than the cost of a single monster receiver I can try small receivers of a few other brands. I've recently bought a Harman/Kardon 330B, and would like to get a Sansui next. It seems that in some series the lower powered units actually can sound better without all those Watts getting in the way. LOL!
Also, if you look at total sales volume, I don't believe the monster receivers were ever what paid the bills at these companies. They were to demonstrate engineering capability (maybe) and in the stereo wars a matter of oneupmanship and bragging rights (definitely). My receiver can beat up your receiver. But it was the medium and lower powered units that they sold in volume. It's like the Corvette. Chevrolet would go out of business in short order if they only sold Corvettes, but the presence of the Corvette on showroom floors helps sell the more mundane models by association. And that's where they made their money.
@@jeffbranch8072 It is all about "quality" watts, not just having a LOT of watts, most often.
test
Test confirmed.