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Old 20th Jun 2021, 11:52 am   #21
Richard_FM
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Default Re: Department store radios

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I was very surprised to find this Boots Audio TR600 radio is a clone of the ITT Colt
Mike
I've seen this before, I presume it was a badge engineered design by a company which made radios for different brands.
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Old 20th Jun 2021, 12:09 pm   #22
Edward Huggins
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Default Re: Department store radios

Noting Post #13, Alba made the portable record players offered under the Spinney brand. WRT to the references to Perdio, they also made CIVIC and EAR branded portable record players in their last years i.e.1962-1963. However, I feel the Honours for the "no-name" manufacturer must go to Plessey.
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Old 20th Jun 2021, 1:15 pm   #23
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Default Re: Department store radios

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Was Matsui a brand of Dixons, and I think Currys had their own brand of transistor radios, cant remember what they were called. I think they may have been clones of the Dixons models. It made price matching difficult as they were different models.
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Matsui was originally a Currys house brand. Dixons bought Currys in the mid 80s but ran it as a separate division and retained its own branding. Dixons themselves used Prinz/Prinzsound in the 70s when they were trying to sound German, then Saisho when they were trying to sound Japanese. I think their main brand now is Logik, but DSG do a lot less house branding than they used to.
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Old 20th Jun 2021, 2:13 pm   #24
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Default Re: Department store radios

B4 the Dixons/Curry's merger the names Prince sound and possible shaiso
were names used by Dixons for radio .
As time went by these names were dropped and Matsui possible Logic became the lead names for most product in the group.
The shaiso name was kept for awhile on the Dixion shops but most had the
same inside as the Matsui one . on Tv's & VCR's IE vr 705/ Vcr 905
Regard Derrick
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Old 20th Jun 2021, 4:15 pm   #25
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Default Re: Department store radios

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B4 the Dixons/Curry's merger the names Prince sound and possible shaiso
were names used by Dixons for radio .
Spelt with a "Z" Prinz, Prinzsound, Prinztronic.
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Old 20th Jun 2021, 6:16 pm   #26
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Default Re: Department store radios

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Noting Post #13, Alba made the portable record players offered under the Spinney brand............However, I feel the Honours for the "no-name" manufacturer must go to Plessey.
Perhaps to an even greater extent... were Alba actually making anything at all in the 1960s/70s? Their transistor radios in the early '60s were as far as I know Plessey products, slight variants on Defiant models, some of them also appearing badged as Magnavox and as home-constructor designs such as the Contessa series.

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Old 21st Jun 2021, 7:25 pm   #27
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Default Re: Department store radios

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B4 the Dixons/Curry's merger the names Prince sound and possible shaiso
were names used by Dixons for radio .
Spelt with a "Z" Prinz, Prinzsound, Prinztronic.
It was "Saisho" - apparently it meant 'First' in Japanese - or that's what they would lead you to believe.

I was always amused by "Spinney" as a brand used by Littlewoods. A Spinney is a little wood...

In the 70s and 80s Readers Digest sold a range of cheap-and-cheerful record-decks/amplifiers - I guess these were intended to play the 'easy listening' music compilations also sold by Readers Digest [think Mantovani, James Last, Bert Kaempfert].

They seemingly sold well in West Germany back then - but West Germany's post-WWII music-scene was deeply ingrained in "Schlagermusik" and such stuff performed by "Baron Wolfgang and his Bierfest Oompah-band".

I wonder who actually made the mechanics/electronics of the Readers Digest stuff ? My thinking is that RD would have gone for the cheapest Taiwan/Korea manufacturer they could find that month... Somewhere in the attic I've got *one* Readers Digest badged speaker - which I used hooked up to a Pye Westminster - it reproduced 2-Metre amateur-band communications rather well!
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Old 21st Jun 2021, 7:30 pm   #28
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However, I feel the Honours for the "no-name" manufacturer must go to Plessey.
Plessey manufactured MW/LW radios for both Philips and Cossor back in the 1960s; I had two - one was first owned by my parents, the other by my grandmother. The Philips one had a plastic case, the Cossor one a Vynide-covered-wood case but the innards were the same: OC170 mixer, OC170 IF amp, OC71 detector, OC81D driver and two OC81 as output. These were 'interesting' because they eschewed the classic approach to AGC-by-controlling-the-bias-to-the-IF-amps and instead used an AGC-biased 'shunt' diode across the signal-frequency's tuned-circuit.
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Old 21st Jun 2021, 9:10 pm   #29
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Default Re: Department store radios

Cossor Radio and TV became a part of Philips in 1958 and were basically re-worked Philips sets you often find Cossor, Stella and Philips models with minor cosmetic changes ideal territory for Plessey.

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Old 21st Jun 2021, 9:14 pm   #30
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Saisho possibly, pseudo-Japanese? I once had a large-ish Matsui CRT TV to repair and was surprised to find that it was 'Grundig inside'.

Edit: Wow, this is a fast-moving thread.
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Old 22nd Jun 2021, 2:20 am   #31
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Currys also had Triumph as their in house brand from 1981 to 1985! Most were cheapies but often goodies while Hitachi & others made the better stuff! A pretty good rip-off of the Sanyo mini radio cassette could be had for £79.95 in late 1982!
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Old 22nd Jun 2021, 10:06 am   #32
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Default Re: Department store radios

As has been mentioned previously Boots use to sell rebadge ITT portable radios during the 1970's and early 1980's. My time working at Mastercare we saw lots of Triumphs and Trophies which were Curries own brands. Some of their Radios, Radio Cassettes and TV's were actually quite good and much better than some of the more well known brands
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Old 22nd Jun 2021, 2:32 pm   #33
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Default Re: Department store radios

My nice little Defiant, looks pretty but not sounding its best at the moment.

Ian
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Old 22nd Jun 2021, 10:40 pm   #34
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Default Re: Department store radios

I've seen a Triumph car radio, not sure if it was from Currys or was the car maker's branding!
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Old 23rd Jun 2021, 7:40 am   #35
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Default Re: Department store radios

I'm surprised that Harrods didn't sell home branded radios, but then they've always been known for selling the best of the best anyway.
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Old 23rd Jun 2021, 8:00 am   #36
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I'm surprised that Harrods didn't sell home branded radios...
I've seen their labels on quite a few Roberts radios, often as I recall with a Harrods serial number as well as that of the manufacturer, but I can't remember coming across them on anyone else's sets - has anybody here seen other examples? Seems odd if they only ever sold Roberts, who between the mid '30s and about 1970 only made portables though some of their valve models were mains-only.

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Old 23rd Jun 2021, 2:15 pm   #37
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Hi. How about this offering from Regentone? It was made for Great Universal Stores, hence model GUS 100. Just like the DP2 & DP3 models by Regentone, it had a really impressive cabinet.
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Old 23rd Jun 2021, 4:45 pm   #38
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Hi. How about this offering from Regentone? It was made for Great Universal Stores, hence model GUS 100. Just like the DP2 & DP3 models by Regentone, it had a really impressive cabinet.
It certainly wants to be noticed! Not to everyone's taste of course, but it is to mine.
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Old 23rd Jun 2021, 7:36 pm   #39
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Default Re: Department store radios

Was Memorex latterly a brand name used by Tandy? I have a Memorex cassette recorder somewhere. Many of the components are marked Akai.
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Old 26th Jun 2021, 12:03 pm   #40
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Default Re: Department store radios

Talking of Tandy/Radio Shack, I have a Realistic stereo receiver that seems to have been made by Fostex in Japan, more widely known perhaps for their recording products. A really solidly made item, no real signs of being built down to a price.
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