Shop in Pittsburgh? Want to listen to 845 amp.

Long, long before Circuit City and Best Buy, who remembers "The Sound Store" (located inside "The Appliance Store") and Wanders?

I bought my first real system from Tasso Spanos at Opus One.
He was a classic, old school, intellectual-type, semi-bohemian hi-fi guy who loved the KLH 9 and Marantz tube amps. I remember hearing my first ARC tube amps in his shop; he was one of the first to demonstrate the Dalhquist speaker, and was the Linn dealer in Pittsburgh when direct drive turntables were the rage in the 70's.
I was not an easy place to do serious listening during the day, since the 'trolley' would go by every few minutes (aka a 'streetcar,' a sort of homely version of the cablecars that still exist in San Francisco).
I also remember the Curley Bros- anybody here remember those guys? Mike was a heavyset, wild looking guy with a hatfield type beard- met them (his little brother Denny was his second in command)- they used to run the original Audio Warehouse on Rt__ . (They were not the owners, but it was as if the store was theirs). Tons of used equipment, hi-end on the cheap, left there, had their own little odd shop up in the North Hills with Transcriptors, old Mac tube stuff and early Wm. Johnson amps/pre-amps. Mike was also an avid Ferrari collector back when you could buy them for the price of say, a good preamp today. Haven't seen them in years.

Wow - thank you all for the very helpfull responses. There's hope for Pittsburgh. I'm a grad student in Squirrel Hill BTW.

Jebel, The sound store was in monroeville mall, as it happens this was the first place that i bought my first "serious system" as a kid. I remember their showroom floor was packed like a sardine can , could hardly move without bumping into something.. That system consisted of a technics reciever,bic tt, and a pair of sonic art(remember them) speakers, WOW seems like a million years ago.. I used to blast that system in my bedroom and drive my parents "nuts". Lots of tt feedback but man did it rock-out...(:^)...

"The Sound Store" was a department inside "The Appliance Store" and had about 8-10 stores across the metro Pgh area. I remember one store across Rt 22 from Showcase Cinema in Monroeville and their warehouse store in East Liberty. When I was about 10, I went with my brother to the East Liberty store when he bought his first stereo -- a 55 Watt Technics receiver, JBL speakers, and an Optonica tape deck (high end Sharp.) Sure sounded better than my all-in-one (receiver, tape tape deck, phono) Sanyo thing.

Wanders was also an appliance/audio store that was a competitor to the "The Appliance Store". They had stores in Monroeville Mall, Eastland Mall (when it was a real mall) and at one point had a store in Squirrel Hill on Forbes and one in Oakland -- also on Forbes. I used to buy my Maxell XLII and TDK-SA tapes there. They used to sell 6 or 8 Maxell tapes in a Wander exclusive 15 tape vinyl cassette holder. Just found one and it is in great shape!! Anyone want to buy one? :) Ironically, a friend of mine recently gave me his Nakamichi tape deck, but I haven't even hooked it up to my system as I'm afraid how bad it will sound.

Opus One closed when I was still pretty young, but do remember buying a Teac tape deck there. I remember telling the salesperson how great Bose speakers were, but he really didn't want to get into a conversation with a 12 year old and let it go. I remember him telling me that you can do a lot better for the money. Pretty sure he was telling the truth :)