Oberheim, Roland and Yamaha

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Was the

Oberheim DMX, OB-X, OB-Xa, OB-8, Matrix-12 and Matrix 6
Roland Jupiter-8, Tr-808, TR-909 and the Juno
and the Yamaha DX-7

ever sold in retail stores like K-Mart, Sears, and other stores.

― startrekman, Saturday, 17 July 2004 03:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Does your question have a point?

― cs appleby (cs appleby), Saturday, 17 July 2004 04:54 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah were they ever in retail stores.

― startrekman, Saturday, 17 July 2004 04:55 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe a Juno 60? The juno 106 that was all grey in design and had an attached wire backing for sheet music and had internal speakers. I owned it. CLASSIC bad marketing. I don't think I got the model # right. Andy-O I need you.

― cs appleby (cs appleby), Saturday, 17 July 2004 04:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, there was a sister line to the Junos for the consumer market - same synths, with stereo speakers. The HS-60 was the Juno 106 in an uglier casing. What stores they were sold in, I don't know.

I seriously doubt most of the models mentioned were sold in department stores, especially the Oberheims, Jupiter 8, etc. You have to consider how much these went for, new.

― Ryan Reid, Saturday, 17 July 2004 05:50 (twenty-one years ago)

If any semi-pro instruments were ever sold in department stores, I'm quite sure the first product line would have been BOSS. The DR-110/220 may have seen some consumer life, but it still seems a little unlikely. The only machine I can be sure about is the Realistic (Moog) MG-1, and that was probably Radio Shack exclusive.

― Ryan again, Saturday, 17 July 2004 14:31 (twenty-one years ago)

im not old enough to know firsthand but i would assume that thse synths were not sold in department stores. its hard for me to picture going into kmart now to get an andromeda or motif es8 or etc.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Saturday, 17 July 2004 20:27 (twenty-one years ago)

a prophet was like 5 grand retail, I doubt they sold them in k-mart.

the only thing they was in retail back in the 80's were casio's and yamaha portatones.

the sk-5 cost a bit back in the day as well.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Saturday, 17 July 2004 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Casio CZ-101 was sold retail, also.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Sunday, 18 July 2004 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I put this question to an appropriate mailing list after wondering about it myself, and got some interesting responses.

Go to www.retrosynth.com/ah and search "Analogues in Retail" for the last month.

― Crunk in Christ, Monday, 19 July 2004 10:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I was "around" at the time when all the isntruments listed were current, and I never saw any of them in general retail/department store, only in music stores. Even things like the home juno 60, the hs-60 and the like, you'd see them in the kind of music shop that sold home organ consoles and the like. Things like the ob-8, matrix 12, jupiter 8 etc were real high-ticket items when they were new - 3-4000 uk pounds was a typical price tag on such an item when it was new, and this was in the eighties, so it's not the sort of thing a department store would stock.

There was an older buchla machine, possibly the buchla 400? that was supposedly going to be licence built by a mass market manufacturer, iirc kimball, and there are a few of them around badged thusly, but I don't think that project came to anything.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 19 July 2004 11:13 (twenty-one years ago)

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