For auld lang syne, ..high-end companies you really liked that are gone....

Montgomery Ward's coolest line was "Airline".

DeKay

@adweller  I don't recall Allison speakers at Pacific Stereo.  However, I know they were really great speakers.  That dome midrange driver was excellent.  We also sold a ton of Infinity but they are still alive so I didn't mention them above.  The proprietary "house brand" was Quadraflex.  For the money, they actually sounded pretty good.  My favorite were the AR speakers.  Really nice tweeter.

dekay,  My parents had a "Wards" charge account, so our home had washer-dryer, range, lawnmower, mixer, my "3-speed" bike, and many of my early clothes and other things from there.  I am not sure if it was just the local store or passed down from my grandparents, the Wards loyalty.  The first shopping center in Iowa City was/is the "Wardway Plaza"....much of it is still there, but no Wards.  In my youth most towns seemed to have a Wards, a Sears and a J.C. Penny....before the days of K-Mart and the like...which are all gone or nearly gone now as well.  It is simply sad that after GM killed better car companies, like Packard..etc. Americans just filled that gap with Toyota, Datsun, Mercedes, BMW...and many more.  If anti-trust laws had been enforced and politicians had not been bought off, perhaps the best cars in the world would still be made in America?  Packard was called "The Car of Kings", and they were.   The film "Tucker" still didn't go where the truth was about "the big three" and anti-trust laws being ignored. 

I am very pleased that so much of great high-end audio is made in this country.  I wonder if it is because of the high-end still being a niche market..now that most former U.S. brands, like RCA, et.al. are from Taiwan or the like?

 

Yes, Wards/JC Penny/Sears as well.

I recall my mother buying some double knee jeans from one of them in the early/mid 60's and adding/sewing a 3rd knee patch to the outside.

I was tough on clothes, and it's no mystery as to why both of my knees are toast.

DeKay

VMPS speakers, Tube Research Labs, Grace arms and cartridges, Dayton-Wright speakers, Dahlquist speakers, Design Acoustics speakers, Ariston turntables, Beveridge speakers, Maplenoll TT/arms...I owned a few of these at different times and still have the first 3 items mentioned.

Bob