Did You Know That Radio Shack Made Audiophile Cables? Well They Did And I Review Some.

January 28, 2021

#416

Gentle reader,

I have been writing about audio equipment for many years now and have owned hundreds of components and speaker pairs since I started in this hobby at 19 in 1976.

My latest article can be read here:

The Robb Collections: Retail Prices Specifications and More On Classic And Modern Dynaco Stereo Equipment  

And for the complete list of links to ALL of the articles:

The Robb Collections: INDEX PART ONE To Every Article: Stereo, Quad, Home Theater, Speakers And More 

The Robb Collections: INDEX PART TWO To Every Article: Stereo, Quad, Home Theater, Speakers And More 

 

The Robb Collections: INDEX PART THREE To Every Article: Stereo, Quad, Home Theater, Speakers And More 

Radio Shack is barely struggling these days with very few stores, what with the world of Internet shopping. But there was a time that most towns boasted at least one store and cities held many branches.

Long ago, electronics such as radios and televisions used vacuum tubes instead of transistors and as a result, since they failed after a time and were easily and safely replaced by the consumer, many drug stores had a Tube Tester machine. But, those same stores did not usually sell tubes.  

Radio Shack, Allied Electronics and other chains of electronic stores were THE place to go to find all of your electronic needs such as tubes, antennas, wiring, and all kinds of other things.

The company has gone through a number of bankruptcies over recent years and are only a pale shadow of what they once were.

But, for decades one could buy turntables, amplifiers, tuners, receivers, speakers, ham and CB radios, wires, cords and cables of all sorts and all kinds of other things many of which had the Realistic brand.

There was a time, a LONG time, where people went to Radio shack and bought a simple roll of thin "lamp cord" and used that to wire their speakers. Thin grey Phono or RCA cables to use in their HiFi, Stereo or Quadraphonic music setups. And they thought nothing of it. Music was coming out, what more could you want?

Then magazines like Stereophile, Audio, HiFi then later, Stereo Review and The Absolute Sound came out and people started to learn that to enjoy the BEST music experience, they needed Audiophile components, speakers and of course wiring and cabling. 

Not wanting to lose money to other stores, Radio Shack jumped on the bandwagon and began making better quality wires, cables and cords. Often with 24K gold plating. 

I have owned every length which Radio Shack sold of these cables. 

I could find NO information on the item number on these cables. Then I remembered: Radio Shack Catalog Archive (1939-2011) 

I went through recent years of the catalogs trying to find these cables. For the longest time, Radio Shack's "Gold Series" were like this:

That happens to be a "Y" cable which I no longer have. Anyway, searching through recent years of the catalogs on that site, which is AWESOME, I finally found in the 2003-2004 catalog these cables and this is what it said:

“Premium A/V Cables-the perfect blend of design and technology.

Without a doubt, these are some of the highest quality cables available.
They are GUARANTEED to deliver absolute best signal that you’re A/V
components can produce. Premium construction from the inside and out.

Stereo Audio Cable

Innovative dual twisted-pair design isolates each channel’s positive and negative components to reduce hum and crosstalk, even on long cable runs. 100% shielding from cable to contacts helps keep the signal in and interference out. 99.997% pure oxygen-free copper core delivers a cleaner signal path. Two 24K gold-plated low-capacitance phono (RCA) plugs at each end. Ferrite toroidal filters remove EMI and RF interference.
3-foot #15-1001 6-foot #15-1002 12-foot #15-1003 20-foot #15-1004 ”
 

So, now I had other item numbers for them and still could find nothing else and that catalog had no prices in it. Below is the back of the card in the package.

I have a stack of vintage Yamaha components inches from where I sit at my PC typing these articles. They are the "500U" series, I have the AX-500U integrated amplifier, TX-500U tuner, the FINEST tuner I have ever owned, the KX-500U cassette deck and had tried two CX-500U CD players, but they both had issues, so I bought the next one up, the CX-510U. And an OPPO DV-980H universal player for SACD, HDCD and DVD-Audio discs. I do not have a turntable in here because I have no place to put one.

Anyway, the left channel kept cutting out on the CD player, I could wiggle the RCA cable and it might come back on, or smack the side of the amp and it might. 

To troubleshoot, I swapped the RCA cables and the problem disappeared. I got out my meter and found the left channel plug was open.  

Since I have used these cables before, but always they were used, I sought out some on eBay and as often happens to me, there was a seller, he happened to be brand new to eBay, he had three sets of brand new ones complete with years of dust on the packaging. No extra charge for the dust, at only $15.00 each.

My Yamaha CD player had an occasional flaw in that it would play the music as if one was pressing the fast-forward button, which I was not. Most of the time it played fine.

But I realized that it was superfluous since I had the OPPO which of course plays regular CDs. So, I sold the Yamaha on eBay.

Due to it's front-to-back depth, I had it on the bottom. Since it would bother me having it's ass sticking way out of the stack. Normally, I would never stack components on disc player, but for some reason the OPPO would migrate backwards being on the top of the stack. Even "QuakeHold Museum Putty" would not keep it in place.

The OPPO is built like a tank and it does not seem stressed being at the bottom and works fine.

Of all of the integrated amplifiers I have owned, this is the first I have seen with dedicated terminals for an equalizer or other sound modifying components. Normally "U" shaped pins joined the preamp to the power amp portions. 

My very first component, a Dynaco PAT-5 preamp kit had the same thing, but it was switched so no jumpers were needed:

"E.P.L. OUT and E.P.L. IN" are the same type of circuitry terminals. I do NOT miss those tight RCA terminals which preclude the use of quality RCA interconnect cables.  

My current Dynaco PAT-6 Tuner-Preamplfier, which I photographed before cleaning it, has modern widely spaced RCA terminals. 

Since these cables have been curled in their packaging since new, they are a little stiff. I usually like to carefully align cables and use Velcro wrap to organize them. But I am letting the acclimate to their new environment. And I may just ignore my OCD tendencies and leave them be.

Three examples of my madness are below. All from 2015, they show the various brands of cables I have used on the main system in the listening room, which does NOT look like these images do. In fact, I'm surprised I have not make photographs of what the cabling looks like now. 

This is the system as it is now. If you compare the photos below, you may note the differences.

Those gray Monster Cable speaker cables are long gone. I now use their "Z" series and am much pleased with the sound. The interconnects are a mix of Liberty Cable and top-of-the-line Monster Cable 1000 series.

This one is more Liberty Cable and less Monster Cable.

And these are all Liberty Cable with some grey Monster Cable ones, I think. The photos are in reverse chronological order because Blogger has been doing that since their "upgrade".

Above are these Radio Shack cables compared to typical ones many people use.

And this image shows the last Radio Shack Gold series compared to their predecessor and at bottom are a pair the latest cables I found before our local Radio Shack became a Sprint cell phone store. They are their Auvio brand. The plugs are similar, but do not have the firm gripping outer terminals and the cables are much thinner and probably not "twisted pair" construction.

The same cables were available in analog HD video as well as a combination of stereo audio and S-Video which is currently available (as of this writing) on eBay.

 

Now, how do they sound? In a word, superb! The soundstage has broadened and deepened, even cassette tapes sound better. Plus, sometimes, new IS better.
 

Thank you for taking the time to read my humble blog. Please take a moment to click or tap the FOLLOW button which is located on the edge of the Dynaco PAT-5 back panel photograph. That way, you will receive notifications of new articles as they come out. Also, feel free to leave a comment below or on Facebook.

 

Scott

 

January 28, 2021

 

#416

Vintage and Modern HO Scale Railroad Cars. Excellent at Collecting Dust!

January 25, 2021

#415

Gentle reader,

In the days of yore, last Century, many children around the world longed to have a model railroad set to play with. 

My family never had one, my brother and I liked cars, so, in the 1960's our parents surprised us one Christmas with an Aurora Model Motoring HO slot car set.

However, near the end of the last Millennium, we bought a simple figure 8 HO train set for us and the kids to play with. 

Where we lived, the basement had a large laundry/utility room and since we already had HO slot cars and now trains, I devised a set of two "tables" made from four foot by eight foot plywood with one inch by four inch barrier walls all the way around.

The bottom table had hinged legs on one end and the other end rested on a workbench top. The upper table was designed to "nest" right on top of the bottom table. To play with slot cars, only the bottom one was lowered. To play with trains, both were.

I created a series of ropes and pulleys so that one could raise and lower one or both tables. When they were raised, they were up against the ceiling. Which is what you see here:

That is our daughter who is now 33 with three children. You can see the ropes and one of the four smaller pulleys which were in each corner of the tables.

Here are some of the new and older cars we bought at hobby shops or the annual train show.

When we moved from that townhouse to our present home, we did not have a room which we could dedicate to our HO activities. So, the trains, track and structures were stored in the attic for several years.

After the kids moved out and stopped moving back in, one of the two shelves I built for the two of them stayed here. It held a number of things over the years, finally I dedicated the top four shelves to display the rail cars and locomotives. I put a plexiglass cover over the front of the shelves to keep little (grandchildren) fingers from trying to pick up the train cars. I had hoped that we would someday make space for trains or cars to be played with.

Where I placed it, it was too wide for the wall behind it, but I dealt with it.

I was focused on the Porsche poster for another article, so the locomotives are out of blurry. I have NO idea what that white wavy thing is at the top right in the photo!

 

Since we have been buying, collecting and racing 1:64th scale diecast cars, we have amassed more than 2000 of them. 

Nancy did not have a place to display hers and I, after redoing this room to make it more user friendly and aesthetically pleasing, I decided the shelf needed to go. Giving it to her filled the need for both of us. 

The locomotives took up the entire top shelf, so I started with them. After removing as much dust as I could using a combination of a Swiffer 360 and canned air (which is really a refrigerant) I began photographing each one.

Soon I realized that with Nancy downstairs preparing a place in the family room for the shelf, I just needed to get them off of it, clean the shelf, then get her help getting it to the family room.

So this is all of the cars which we still posses. A total of 84. The vintage ones were Nancy's fathers as was much of the track. 

I tried to arrange the many box cars like a spectrum of visible colors. The length differences surprised me. Having worked on subway cars for 35 years, all seven types were the same length: 75 feet.

The oldest ones have wear and weathering and plain old dirt. They also have more details than newer ones, including sliding doors. 

This "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" is unique to me in that both the locomotive AND the tender are powered.

You can see the metal wheels on the tender and the wires to it from the locomotive.

All of the steam rolling stock are solid metal and some quite weighty for their diminutive size. That's 9.8 ounces. 

Once I employed my lighted magnifying glass and realized this was a PRR* locomotive, it solved the mystery of why one of the tenders has no standard coupler on the front of it and the other PRR locomotive does have that type of coupler.

*Pennsylvania Rail Road.

The PRR locomotive's weight, below.

The following set of photos is the other PRR locomotive, which we do not have a tender for. 

The lettering fonts being the same is what caused my initial confusion.

The camera had focused not on the middle of the cars, but further back.

Here, you can see the dust I did not notice until editing these pictures and the lack of a standard coupler on the front of the tender.

Which is why I was delighted when I saw the keystone with PRR within it on the other locomotive for which this tender is now mated. Unlike in these photos.

The combined weight of the mismatched pair.

Since Nancy's family was from Virginia, it would make sense for her dad to choose local (if no longer in service) railroads.

It is interesting to me that the back of this locomotive has no access point to get coal from the tender. Might it be a yard locomotive?

And here is it's weight.

I abandoned the photographing of individual vehicles after these engines and concentrated upon finishing removing most of the dust and carefully packing them away. Again.

The steam and largest/newest diesel-electric locomotive starting and the left end. The B&O pair are both locomotives, but the farthest car has no real cab.

Again, I could tell the age and/or quality of similar looking locomotives by their heft and material used to make them.

We bought the Amtrak set at a train show. Two much older passenger cars to match the steam locomotives. The Chessie caboose is missing a truck and the Virginian hopper is missing both trucks.

We had a bunch more cabooses, but must have sold the rest. All of the "cabeese" above in a 2009 photo. 

Union Pacific box car is the largest by far, and it's silver roof stands out. The worn paint of the one in the middle show's it was her dad's. 

 

Two coal cars with a gravel car in between. A triplet of tractors and two logs cars. The one to the right of those tilts to let the logs roll off to the side of the tracks.

I'm not sure what kind of car the top left one is. The beige colored piece is designed to rotate upward on pins, but one is broken off. 

A pair of Santa Fe semi trailers predate containers being shipped by rail. The maintenance cars you will see more of below. The flat car is quite heavy due to a sheet of steel beneath the floor.

The different lengths of the red boxcars is quite evident in this group. 

Top row starts with that flat car, then another tractor car, sans tractors, I don't know what the low-walled cars are called and four hoppers between them. On the brown one, the doors open.

Tankers with five being of similar size, but different designs and the really long one being for Exxon products.

And the last of the boxcars, again showing size disparity.

As promised, the maintenance cars. The Santa Fe crane car is really interesting. 

I had two loose axles and the solo truck from the Chessie caboose, so I put them on the car above. 

Note "Virginia & Truckee" on the dark red one. But it refers to the other Virginia, as in Virginia City, Kansas. 

See:V&T Railroad for more information. 

You can see the log cars and three tractors in this photo and the side of some of the diesel locomotives. 

A closer look at the B&O diesel pair and the super long Illinois Central Gulf locomotive. 

The rest of the diesels, the "Midnight Special" reminds me of the locomotive in that silly Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor film Silver Streak. It bothered me that the name of the fictitious railroad was Amroad, it seems to me Amrail would have worked better.

A long view of all 84 of the cars, sans the two truck-less ones.

This series of pictures are all from 2009. It gives you better views of many of the cars at angles not seen above.

Cattle cars.

The green/black Burlington Northern locomotive is all plastic and SO lightweight as a result. Cheap, for sure.

A San Francisco cable car, a vintage-looking electric street car and one of her dad's box cars that has seen better days.

All four of these were his.

The Forest Lumber tilting car, above.

Again, the length difference between older tankers and the much newer EXXON one.

I am a box keeper, so I am certain, somewhere in the attic are all these boxes safely stored.

Various cars and engines arranged upon the carpet when it was much never than now.

Whew! Well, that is it for now. The cars, all 84, are all safely padded and packed into sealed boxes in the attic awaiting that day, probably after we have left this mortal coil, when younger hands than ours slice the tape and open the boxes to see what is inside.

Please take a moment to click or tap the FOLLOW button which is at the end of the long list of article dates near the first PRR steam locomotive. That way you will receive notices when new articles come out.

 

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Thanks!

 

Scott & Nancy

January 25, 2021