Whatever Happened To SAE?

The went bankrupt more than twenty years ago.

Yup, the Bongiorno-designed, Mk IIICM was a nice amplifier (before the black stuff).

Didn't they become ATI?

I bought my real first system at Cal Hi-Fi in 1968. I made poor choices for the most part.

Oh yes, the Cal Stereo days. Tom Campbell and the constant commercials on KMET and KLOS. The cool rock days. What about Pacific Stereo, University Stereo, Federated Group, Music+, Licorice Pizza, The Wherehouse, etc? What we all wanted back then we would demote to using today as a door stop. Man oh man how things have changed.

Oh yes, and SAE made a cool parametric equalizer that I owned for a short while. It was fun to play with and alter the sound but even on my midfi setup at the time, it was clear that it did more harm than good. So I sold it through the old "recycler". Does that even exist any more?

John

I grew up in the South Bay and remember when Licorice Pizza, the Wherehouse flagship store and a great little stereo shop were all on the corner of Sepulveda and Hawthorne Blvd.

I'll never forget one Saturday in the late 1970s walking around that area and I heard Star Wars blasting from that stereo shop from across the street. I went inside and a bispectacled young salesman had the Star Wars theme blaring from a single Altec speaker with a horn tweeter and a 24" woofer. I remember him smiling and yelling, "doesn't it sound great?!!!!" Yes, it did.

Cassandra Peterson [Elvira] and Shadoe Stevens [FredRated] were both on KROQ, Frasier Smith was on KLOS and Jeff Gonzer was on KMET. Ahh, the days.