Lafayette Radio Electronics

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lafayette Radio Electronics Corporation
Company typePublic
IndustryRetail
Founded1931
Defunct1981
FateBankruptcy
Headquarters
Syosset, New York

Lafayette Radio Electronics Corporation was an American

retailer from approximately 1931 to 1981, headquartered in Syosset, New York, a Long Island suburb of New York City. The company sold radio sets, Amateur radio (Ham) equipment, citizens band (CB) radios and related communications equipment, electronic components, microphones, public address systems, and tools through their company owned and branded chain of retail outlets and by mail-order.[1]

History

Lafayette Radio Electronics, QSL card for use by headquarters staff amateur radio operators.

"Wholesale Radio Service" was established in the early 1920s by Abraham Pletman in New York City. Radios sold by the company were trademarked “Lafayette” in July 1931. Following a Federal Trade Commission action in 1935, Wholesale Radio Service became "Radio Wire Television, Inc.". A 1939 company catalog bore the names Radio Wire Television Co. Inc. and "Lafayette Radio Corporation". In 1948, the company issued a catalog under the name “Lafayette-Concord” and called itself the “world’s largest radio supply organization”. In 1952, a catalog was issued using only the Lafayette name.[1]

Lafayette Radio Electronics (LRE) soon became a thriving

Jamaica, N.Y. and Manhattan in the mid-1950s. The electronics kits were produced in the Jamaica facility.[1]

Lafayette advertised heavily in major U.S. consumer electronics magazines of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly

Stereo Review. The company offered a free 400-page catalog filled with descriptions of vast quantities of electronic gear, including microphones, speakers, tape recorders, and other components.[2]

In 1981, Lafayette Radio entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sold its New York area stores to Circuit City.[1]

Retail stores

Until the 1960s, many independent retailers in some markets became Lafayette Radio "Associate Stores", which were displaced when the company expanded. These stores were supported from headquarters at 111 Jericho Turnpike in Syosset, NY and a warehouse in Hauppauge, NY. A limited selection of product was stocked, with full access to a catalog with a wide variety of parts, tubes, cameras, musical instruments, kits, gadgets and branded gear that could be ordered and delivered through the local store. The company made major investments in what were called sound rooms to demonstrate hi-fi equipment, using custom switch panels and acoustic treatments in an attempt to duplicate a home listening environment and offer fair comparison with an assortment of branded hi-fi gear.[1]

Managers were rewarded for maximizing gross profit margins and inventory "turns", which led to frequent out-of-stock situations, often remedied by frequent cross-town inter-store transfers. Each store had a repair shop on site with a part-time technician. Some locations had multiple full-time service technicians. Others had service departments that operated independently of the store but under the same ownership. Stores ranged in size from 2,000 to 5,000 square feet (460 m2).

By the late 1970s, Lafayette expanded to major markets across the country, struggling to compete with

Radio Shack, which was purchased by Tandy Leather Co. in 1963. Lafayette ran into major financial difficulty when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expanded a new citizens band radio ("CB") spectrum to 40 channels in 1977. Lafayette's buyers had firm commitments to accept delivery of thousands of older design units capable of only 23 channels, and were not able to liquidate the inventory without taking a serious loss. Eventually, all of the old CB radios were sold for under $40.[2][3]

With fewer than 100 stores, far fewer than the aggressively expanding Radio Shack's thousands of local outlets, Lafayette Radio remained more of a dedicated enthusiasts' store than a mass marketer. The company was also hurt by the advent of electronics retailers relying on aggressive marketing techniques and competitive pricing in the late 1970s. Many experienced managers departed. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1981 and most Lafayette stores in the state of New York closed by the end of the year.[3] Approximately two thirds of company-owned stores were closed immediately. According to one employee, they were "given 48 hours to tear the entire store down, get everything boxed that had a valid and current stock number, and get it on a truck to take it back to Syosset (Lafayette’s Long Island warehouse). Anything that wasn’t on the official inventory sheets was to be discarded".[1]

In 1981, Lafayette Radio entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

PC Richard.[3]

As of 2003, the Lafayette brand name was re-launched at the CES show that year. The company's products are offered only through special dealers and limited retail stores.[4]

Products

Lafayette's products ranged from individual resistors, capacitors, and components to stereos and two-way radios for

Trio-Kenwood sets. A significant share of 1960s and 1970s vintage Lafayette hi-fi gear was manufactured by a Japanese subcontractor named "Planet Research". "Criterion" brand speakers were built by several offshore and some domestic assemblers. Science kits were popular, and Lafayette offered the "Novatron", a "Miniature Atom Smasher" (van de Graaff generator), Model F-371.[5][1]

While the catalog heavily promoted the company's own branded products, Lafayette also carried models from many other hi-fi manufacturers of the era, including

Bozak, BIC, BSR McDonald, Garrard, Dual, TEAC, Akai, Shure, Empire, Pickering, Electro-Voice, JVC, Panasonic, Sony and others.[5] The catalogs and advertising helped promote the concept of high-fidelity sound to customers, some of whom lived many miles away from major electronics stores, during a time when only the largest urban areas had dedicated "stereo" stores. Lafayette also offered TV vacuum tube testing
, for customers who wanted to service their own televisions.

Lafayette was quick to jump on industry trends, first by embracing open reel tape recorders, and later,

compact cassette recorders,[6] along with an array of gimmicks, supplies, and accessories.[5] During the mid-1970s, the company's stores were one of few places one could actually experience four channel ("quadraphonic") sound.[7] However the lack of a single industry standard (Columbia SQ vs. JVC's CD-4 and Sansui's QS
) dampened sales, and the experiment ended in 1976.

Lafayette also sold a variety of electronic musical equipment made by different manufacturers. There were solid-body and hollow-body electric guitars, probably made by Teisco or Harmony. Microphones, amplifiers, and various electronic effects such as reverbs were available, many of which sported the Lafayette brand name, most notably the Echo Verb and Echo Verb II.[5] Among the most famous guitar effects that Lafayette sold were the Roto-Vibe and Uni-Vibe, used by many musicians, most notably Jimi Hendrix. Robin Trower, and Stevie Ray Vaughan; others later used the effect to emulate Hendrix's sounds and achieve new ones of their own.[8][9]

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ^
    OCLC 925172081. Archived from the original on 8 May 2021. Retrieved 14 July 2022 – via Ohio University
    .
  2. ^ a b "History Of Lafayette Radio Corp". The Radio Museum.
  3. ^ a b c Barmash, Isadore. "LAFAYETTE RADIO SETS NEW PATH". New York Times, September 10, 1984. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  4. ^ "About Us". LafayetteElectronics.com. Lafayette Electronics. Archived from the original on 6 February 2005. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d Gleason, David F. "Lafayette Radio Catalog, Spring 1968" (PDF). Americanradiohistory.com. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  6. ^ Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series: 1971: July-December. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. 1973. pp. 2917– – via Google Books.
  7. OCLC 671272936 – via Google Books
    .
  8. ^ Provoost, Bart. "Lafayette Radio Electronics (LRE)". The Effects Database. effectsdatabase.com. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  9. ^ "LAFAYETTE Guitar Amplifier Values". Blue Book of Guitar Values. Blue Book Publications, Inc. Retrieved 2 January 2018.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lafayette Radio Electronics Corporation.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lafayette_Radio_Electronics&oldid=1215936337"