About me

I worked for four different local dealers in the Rochester area during the'70s and '80s. These were some of the best times for this hobby and the area was rich with options and competition.

During the '70s I started at Lafayette when I was 18 and they carried (unlike Radio Shack) many brands other than their own store brand.
We had Dynaco, Marantz, BIC, Dual, Pioneer, ESS and others.

From there I moved on to a small relatively unknown store in Penfield called The Sound Cellar. It started out in Schoen Place and later moved to Penfield Rd. Owned by John Bickle,we sold Bang and Olufsen, Accuphase, Nikko, Rotel, Sonab (still a huge personal favorite of mine, I still have a couple of pairs of OA-14speakers), Denon, Dokorder, JVC, Setton, Mirsch and other unique products.


In the mid '70s I worked for a place called T.H.E. Audio Thrshold, AKA Ron's Discount Stereo AKA Esoteric Audio. With the exception of Esoteric this was an audio whorehouse. Bogus modifications to DCM Time Windows, no name Polish speakers with ridiculous mark ups and a few quality brands like CerwinVega, Philips and Pioneer. The owner Ron Yesterby was a tyrant and treated his employees like dirt. My final stint for them had me clearing out the remnants of Esoteric Audio, products like:
Quad, DaytonWright, Radford, Infinity, Tannoy, Lecson, Hartley, Linn, Naim, Fons and numerous other items.

After about a year off I entered my longest stint in the business with JB Sound Systems in the Greece location where I eventually became the store manager. Owned by John Vella (the"V") and Bill Kelliher (the "B") ,this was by far the classiest company that I ever worked for, with the most exciting products. Heritage has it that they flipped a coin and whomever won, their initial came first and the other was president. Thank goodness it didn't end up being BJ Sound! Full line Yamaha dealer, McIntosh, Bang andOlusen, Nakamichi, Denon, Klipsch, Dahlquist, Tandberg, Apt, JBL, Cizek, Koss, Kenwood, Sota, Dual, Phase Techology, Snell, Forte, Perreaux ,Onkyo and more. I was there for about nine years, and it still represents some of the finest memories I have had in the field.
Everything had character and looked unique.Not your typical black boxes with knobs. I was there until 1988, about nine years.

I will also address other local dealers that were in the area, their products and marketing.