Radio Shack is Worth S**T

S

Skyline609

New member
Ok i have a problem with this store, and im going to make it quick. they are INCREDIBLY overpriced. Most of the stuff they sell there im seeing being sold for 30-50 percent above other stores. Crap, they are 10 bucks for 10 feet of sheilded audio cable. Doesnt this stuff usually run about 25 cents a foot!! Im not going to be suprised in the year 2031 when they are charging 87 bucks for a pack of Double A batteries. Second thing.....Their service sucks. I have had many wiring questions and ive resorted to that store to at least provide me with a little help. Almost every case, they service has been totally useless. The stupid emplyees dont even know what they carry!. Hey i might seem cheap, or unknowledable, but im really sick of this company.
 
Yup... You cant go in and browse through their stuff without someone trying to help you, then when you tell 'em what you need... They are clueless as to what it is... I was in there looking for an RCA to 1/4" adapter and they were acting like I was looking for C4 explosives or something.
I was in there awhile back looking for a decent set of headphones... I wanted to try out several different kinds... Well they have a little headphone listening station set up with all of the brands they carry all patched through to a stereo receiver...
All that was coming through the receiver was static... The cheesmo sales guy was lingering around so I asked him if he had a CD player or something hooked up so I could listen to some headphones... He said no that was all they had set up... I told him nothing would come through but static and he says that you cant pick up radio stations inside of a mall like this ?!?!?!?!
So you're supposed to judge your choice of headphones based on static???
I've got to be hurtin pretty bad for something to buy it there...

S8-N
 
Only go to Radio Shack as a last resort. I go there mainly for adapters; they usually have the ones that other stores don't.
 
Yeah guys:

The problema with Radio Shack and many other stores is that they cannot find knowledgeable people to work. Everyone is working and the job market is huge.

I had a guy at radio shack try to sell me a cell phone with a two year contract. I told him that two months would be all I would ever sign up for because of the many changes coming almost daily in telecommunications. So, I wound up with Nextel -- no contract so if I want to quit the service I only lose the price of the phone.

I do go to radio shack to buy "special" esoteric batteries, like the one that powers my Captain Kirk cordless phone -- they collect the price and mail the battery which is a pretty nice service but the "price" is up there.

Well, back to recording.

The Green Hornet
 
Hold on!!!!!!!!
They do have 'one thing' that makes them worth not going postal on....... they have gold plated 1/4" TS's and TRS's which make for grate patch & channel insert cables....... Did I mention that they're made by Switchcraft!
My policy is never look a gift horse in the mouth untill I have beatten it to a pulp with a sledg hammer..... :)
 
They are too busy monitoring their customers' whereabouts and buying habits to be concerned with such trivial matters as adequate training for employees.

dmc
 
I suspect that Radio Shack is like every other huge corporation in that they people running the show have no contact what-so-ever with the average consumer or his/her needs. Amazing for a company that gathers so much info on their customers. The folks that do come into contact with the customer don't get paid enough to make a living, so they soon move on to a better job leaving Radio Shack looking for other poor slobs that can sell batteries.
 
This is all so true...about them watching you while you shop...please..dont they get the picture, your service is no help, so leave me alone, i dont plan on stealing any of your "quailty" products, let alone thats just wrong anywhere. I guess really the only way to get decent advice is from a pro and spend top $$ or of course the home recording BBS ;)
 
Hey, S8-N, you got a song in there somewhere. Serious. Remember Dire Straits "Money for Nothing"? It was based on an exchange Mark had with a guy in an appliance store. Mind you, Sting's vocal did lend a bit of ironic ambience to the tune, too. Tell you what - I'll do the falsetto intro if you can handle crunch guitar.

Can't get no...
Can't get no headphones here...
 
Gotta throw in my 2 cents...you can be as cynical as you want, but I've seen that company grow from a hobby leather store to the point where you can go into any little two-bit town and the local RS will have lots of high-tech equipment, including electronic components and the ever-popular adapters in stock. I can't tell you how many times that's saved me at the last minute.

Radio Shack has done a lot to popularize electronic equipment even if a lot of their stuff is geared to middle America -- and how would it have succeeded if it wasn't? Sure, I know where to find many of the same things at slightly cheaper prices, but you can't beat the convenience.

Now, here's a big secret...go to their Web site and you'll find they often have real deals there, but not the ones in the store flyers. I'm referring to http://radioshack.com/MonthlySpecials/RSFlyers/Gateway/
 
Dragon,
Sounds like you hit the nail right square in the head. But it sounds like the outher guys are dealing in the BIG CITY. That's too bad..
If they would got out to a smaller town and try to develope a relation ship with the store GEEK. They might be pleasantly surprised. I live in central Mich and the guys at the local R.S. store are very helpfuland when I need something for my business they always go out of their way to get it for me. I can get nearly anything I need in a 2 day time frame. If an item <say> CD-r disk are going to be on sale they will always call and ask how many I want, then sell it to me at the sale price. In short if they are having problems with a R.S. store they should contact R.S. They take complaints very seriously.
 
Sounds like urban and rural branches of this corporation are very different places. At every RS I've been to, the selection has been somewhat shabby and you better have a deity on retainer if you want some knowledgable assistance. Other duties tenaciously pursued by the staff are wasting my time searching for answers they'll never find and insulting me with obvious misinformation.
It's painfully obvious that their staff feels less necessary and/or appreciated
(and more to the point: compensated)
than Gulag residents.
 
Whoah! Just a minute Dragon, are you saying Tandy Leather and the Radio Shack Tandy stuff are of the same animal? That is wild!
Wow! I never would have figured, but now that you mention it, there used to be a Tandy leather hobby shop near my home, and now a Radio Shack stands in its place. I never noticed the relation. So, how did TI come into the picture?

[This message has been edited by Brad (edited 12-11-1999).]
 
Two weeks ago I needed a slightly longer digital/fiber optic cable to connect my CD burner to my Korg D-8. So I walk into Radio Shack and ask the salesman for a 6 foot long digital/fiber optic cable and explained what I needed it for. The official response was a head scratch and a dumbfounded look, as he then said..."a what?" Fortunately, there was another musician in the store who overheard the exchange and he showed me where the cable was. The salesman then took a look at the cable and said... "oh, so that's what these things are for!" The other guy and I had to contain ourselves to keep from losing it, since the salesman (who looked like a mad scientist with his horned-rim glasses) had this look on his face like he had just discovered the cure for polio or something. As I was standing there, I kept hearing that Bugs Bunny voice in my head saying... "What a maroon!"
 
Gonna end this one right here...... :)

We are recording here folks!!! The only time I go to Radio Shack is to get certain obscure adapters that I cannot get elsewhere. And like Dragon, they have kept me in the game at the last minute by having certain things in stock.

Now, I don't need much in the way of "service" from them. Basically, I could probably tell the saleperson more about the stuff they sell than they know!!!

But the real point is, WHY ARE YOU GOING TO RADIO SHACK EXPECTING ANSWERS CONCERNING RECORDING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!

I don't recall seeing any multi-track recorders there. Certainly you are not going to find a digital effects processor, or a dynamic processor. There microphones are advertised for being for public address systems. So, what the hell would they know about recording? Like nothing.

So, if you are going to Radio Shack trying to get answers about recording questions, and you don't get them, then try this phone number. They will listen.

1-800- wa wa wa - wa wa wa wa

:)

Ed
 
My beef wasn't that I expected them to know anything about recording. I only expect them to let me look for what I need on their wall of crap, buy it and leave. Sooner or later
someone at the corporate level will figure out (spurred on by e-commerce competition) that a well written catalog and a computer aided warehousing scheme could replace the old retail model that still encrusts this institution, making the fewer employees still required more valuable. But I'm convinced they'll just try to pocket the wages of those no longer needed and pay those remaining the same minimal wages. If so I hope they fail.
 
I have to say I like their female TRS solder connection jacks for headphones to make my I own headphone extention cables because it's a lot more "Manly" (funny, they're female) than Switchcraft's which have the plasic caseing. Nasty!
 
I would NEVER ask anyone at Radio Shack for recording advice, and I never did. But, thier salespeople should know which items they stock and where it hangs in the store. I agree that R/S has a lot of items that nobody else has, there's no disputing that. You just had to see the look of wonderment on the geeky salesman's face as he examined my cable... it still makes me laugh just thinking about it.
 
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