I’m finally getting around to starting my vintage Radio Shack build. This project still needs a name, so please free to throw out suggestions.
Basically I want to build something I wish I had as a kid, with drivers I looked at so many times but never pulled the trigger because I was too distracted by car audio at the time.
I always wanted and never had a rack system of some sort. I loved looking at the Sunday flyers for the stereo sections, rack systems, and big speakers in Best Buy and American TV ads (along with 50mhz computers for $2000 lol). What truly great times. I really feel like growing up in the 80s to early 2000s was the best. The shift of tech through that times was great. It wasn’t prehistoric but wasn’t smart phones. Everything in between.
So I want that back. I had bought a variety of Radio Shack drivers whenever I could find them, but ended up with a mismatched set of woofers, sealed back mids I don’t really want to use, some stout little 4” woofers that have too low of sensitivity to be a mid, the Realistic rebrand of the Pioneer ribbon tweeter, and a set of mylar dome tweeters. I came close to pairing the 4” and ribbons but didn’t have a need for a Minimus-sized speaker. Actually I don’t have a need for a 10” 3-way either but it was more appealing.
So I reached out for some matching parts and the generosity of the amazing group of people at MAC shined. Thanks so much to kind members like @4thtry@MItchell_Cote and @Nicholas-23 for reaching out with offers for parts. Because of them I have the goods to do this. Thank you!!
So begins the building of these time machines. Stay tuned..
Here are the tweeters. Ribbons have always been exotic to me, so in the day to me this would have been a Ferrari-grade part. Truth is though I was too dumb at the time and into loudness. I would have dismissed these for a conventional tweeter of sorts. My eyes were set in those days on the dual 12” AALs..
So having grown up and all this is the perfect time to build what to me would have been a high-end build at the time using the ribbon.
Bill S connected me with two versions of the same mid woofer, the 40-1218. One pair is from Japan and the other Malaysia. Very interesting to see the differences in cone color and specs despite the same part number.
Bill sent me the most perfectly taken photos of them and sent them to me in the best packaging I have ever encountered. All of Bill’s work, even just packing a cardboard box, makes me feel like such a hack.
And I also promptly received a perfect pair of 40-1036 woofers from Mitchell Cote. It is amazing how such a basic driver can be so beautiful to me. I may be guilty of sitting in my chair holding a nice IPA and just staring at them.
The foam surrounds are like new; soft and pliable. No crumbling or worries of ripping. As Mitchell let me know ahead of time the dustcap had come off on one of the woofers. Same thing happened on one of my new-in-box mismatched 10s as well. The glue on these old drivers just must not have aged as gracefully as the foam; Poly cones are hard to glue to though too. When I went to pull the dustcap on the other one to do some maintenance gluing, it was really on there yet.
I spent alot of time visiting my local Radio Shack store back in the 70’s and 80’s. I know exactly what you mean. I’d like to go back and purchase that pair of Optimus speakers that I always listened to but could not afford. Interesting spec sheet for the ribbon tweeter, showing a suggested crossover of a single cap and optional L-pad! Those were the days.
I never got to experience all that much from the “good ol days” of audio. So I have to rely on “fake nostalgia” with my fascination of horns and old technologies.
I’m kind of bad at coming up with good speaker names, but I would suggest something that relates to Radio Shack’s original naming scheme (Optimus, Nova, Mach I, Mach II, etc.). @wogg used the name “SuperNova Minimus” for his remake of a pair of Realistic Nova 15’s (InDIYana 2019). I thought that sounded kind of cool. He also did a remake on another pair of Nova 15’s and called them the “Nova Hits” (SDC 2025).
