Back to Dick’s Gadget Warehouse - for a look at some 40 year-old headphones.
March 31, 2012 2 Comments 
UPDATE: Several people have emailed to say Lafayette Radio did have some local stores, and the warehouse was not the only brick and mortar place to buy their electronics! Thanks for letting me know.
Probably about 40 years old, are my Lafayette F-780 headphones. If you’re old enough to remember Lafayette Radio you know they were like a Radio Shack-type company. They sold everything electronic, often under their own brand. The difference is Lafayette Radio didn’t have stores everywhere. Most everything was sold via their yearly giant catalog. I believe the only brick and mortar establishment was their warehouse in Manhattan, which was open to the public. You could buy stuff there, but there was nothing on display. You went to the desk with your list of catalog numbers, the salesman disappeared in the back and hopefully came back again with everything on your list. On Saturdays, when people had the day off, the lines were long! Some 40 years ago my Lafayette F-780 headphones were high tech in as much as they have a separate woofer and tweeter in each earpiece. I don’t recall any other headphones that were doing that, back in those days. Since the technology to suspend one speaker inside another hadn’t been developed yet, the separate woofer and tweeter are mounted side-by-side. I also liked the way they look, and still do! For their time, and even today, they sound really good. They have decent, undistorted bass and distinctive highs. Although they’re long gone, I found them on many lists of folks who collect headphones. A pair recently sold on eBay for $20. It was funny, because in the description is said something like: "beware, these headphones have a big jack at the end, so you will need an adapter. The big RCA plug on the Lafayette headphones are shown in the photo, along with the adapter you need to use them with today's 3.5mm headphone jacks.
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Reader Comments (2)
Actually Lafayette Radio did have several retail locations. I remember going to them when I was in High School in the 1960's.
Go to Wikipedia for a more detailed history of the chain...I think the store I visited in Brooklyn, NY was an affiliate store as they sold not only electronics but also items such as LP records.
I remember my grandfather telling me about this radio. He was an everyday listener.