The shops listed here sell DVD players, TVs, VCRs, Mini-DV and 8mm camcorders, home theatre systems, stereo mini-systems and full-size stereo systems and components, "walkman"-type personal stereos (including CD players and MP3 players), boom boxes, and the like. Many also sell film cameras and digital cameras, and car stereos.
Direct From the Manufacturer
The Official Sony Store (Sony Style)
sells Sony electronics from Sony TVs, home theater and video products to portable audio & home audio products (and accessories) direct from the manufacturer. Their inventory includes Sony digital imaging products, like Cyber-shot & Mavica digital cameras and Micro MV, Mini DV, Digital-8, & Hi-8 Sony camcorders plus Video Walkmans, digital photo printers and accessories. They also sell Sony VAIO notebook and desktop computers , monitors, CD/DVD burners, accessories, Sony Clie handheld computers, and AIBO entertainment robots. Canadians: shop at Sony Style Canada .
Panasonic Direct
sells Panasonic electronics direct from the manufacturer, including home and portable audio gear, DVD players and recorders, digital cameras, digital camcorders, Panasonic Toughbook laptops, TVs (LCD TVs, Plasma TVs, DLP TVs, TV projectors, and CRT TVs) SID Memory Cards, and more.
Creative Labs
offers the ZEN line of mp3 digital audio players and personal video players, the industry-standard Sound Blaster audio cards, the Creative Inspire speaker series, and more, direct from the manufacturer. UK shoppers link to Creative Labs UK  .
The Apple Store,
carries all Apple products, including iPod with streaming video, the iPod nano, the iPod shuffle, the iPhone, and Mac PCs, Mac laptops, and Mac software.
Department Stores
Amazon.com Electronics
carries all kinds of home and personal electronics, from too many brand names to count, all at very low prices. You can use the Amazon search form for electronics search, or to search any of their other fine stores.
Consumer Electronics Superstores
Best Buy
is a retailer of consumer electronics, personal computers, entertainment software and accessories, with over 800 retail stores throughout the US. Most items can be returned up to 30 days later for a full refund, and to avoid shipping charges and receive a refund more quickly, you can return items to any Best Buy store.
Circuit City
carries a huge variety of audio, video, and computer products. Their inventory includes desktop & laptop PCs, PDAs, digital cameras, camcorders, and TVs. Their guarantee (see website for details): "Try it out for 30 days. If something's not right or you've simply changed your mind, please return it within that time so we can either exchange it or give you your money back. Since computer technology changes so quickly, we can only offer a 14-day tryout on PCs and related merchandise. For a full refund of a Product, we'll need you to return the box and packaging too... Any Product purchased on-line may be returned to any Circuit City store (except our Circuit City Express locations)..." As of this writing, Circuit City offers free shipping on all orders over $24. They ship only to the continental USA, plus Alaska and Hawaii, and they cannot ship to APO, FPO, or PO Box addresses.
Buy.com Electronics
always has great prices on items like JBL speakers, Pioneer HDTVs, Sharp portable DVD players, and Samsung VCRs, to name just a few. In fact, they carry almost every brand and product you could think of, from Aiwa to Zenith. As of this writing, they offer free shipping on many items. No credit card? Buy.com now accepts payment via PayPal.
Radio Shack
carries the cables, connectors, accessories and batteries for your personal electronics that it is often difficult to find anywhere else. They also carry a full line of consumer electronics from major manufacturers, including digital imaging, portable computing, and home entertainment components.
If it's electronic, OnSale!
has it on sale, including digital cameras, iPods, computer systems , and peripherals.
Opened in New York City in 1984, and on the Internet in 1995, 6th Avenue Electronics
carries thousands of digital cameras, camcorders and other photo, video, and audio products at very low prices, including the full lines of major manufacturers like Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, Panasonic, Olympus, and many more. They have a 30 day return policy (see website for details). At this time, 6ave cannot ship internationally, or to PO, APO, or FPO Boxes.
eCost.com
offers low prices on thousands of consumer electronics products, shipped from over 20 warehouses located across the United States. eCost.com ships to addresses in the 50 United States and Canada, but they do not ship to Post Office Boxes, APO/FPO addresses, or internationally.
Vann's Electronics
has been selling consumer electronics since 1961. They provide outstanding customer service, great values and the best selection of top brands in consumer electronics.
Abt Electronics
is a family owned business and has been in business for over 65 years. Abt has a 130,000 square foot facility in Morton Grove, Il, a suburb of Chicago. Winner of the Better Business Bureau Award for Market Place Ethics, Abt is one of the largest independent retailers of consumer electronics and major appliances, including digital cameras, camcorders, DVD players, VCRs, CD players, auto stereo, and more.
Cambridge Soundworks (Hifi.com)
is a comprehensive consumer electronics website with everything from high-quality home theater systems to cutting-edge multimedia products, including Creative Zen mp3 players and Soundblaster cards.
J&R Computer and Music World,
a family-owned business, was established in downtown New York City in 1971. J&R carries a wide variety of major brand audio/video, camera, and computer products. They have a lowest price match policy (click on the "Have you seen a lower price? Click Here" link on the product detail page). If you are not satisfied with your purchase, MOST products may be returned for exchange or refund (excluding shipping and handling charges) within 30 days. They ship anywhere in the US and Canada, via UPS or the US Postal Service (APO/FPO and PO box addresses must select US Postal Service delivery).
Etronics
sells consumer electronics including mp3 players, home & car audio gear, video gear, digital cameras, cell phones, and more (but not personal computers). Etronics operates a state-of-the-art warehouse and distribution center to ship credit-approved orders the same day that they are placed whenever possible. Fast, economical and reliable United Parcel Service (UPS) or United States Postal Service (USPS) shipping is available for most orders.
Conrad Direct UK
is one of Europe's favourite electronics and technology retailers, with a huge selection of more than 15,000 articles and the very best brands at best prices. Their wide range of products includes computer, multimedia, telephone, auto hi-fi, modeling and model railways gear.
Gadget Hub (UK)
in the UK, offers a wide range of of high quality trendy items for the home and the office, including audio-visual products, computers, and other high-tech gadgets. They currently only deliver inside the UK.
Gadget Shops
iRobot
sells six different models of the famous Roomba vacuum cleaner robot, plus the Scooba floor washing robot.
The Sharper Image
is a general store full of gadget-oriented gifts, including cameras, electronics, music, luggage, housewares, binoculars, watches, and more.
Brookstone
sells hard-to-find tools and unique innovative gadgets and gifts.
X10.com
sells inexpensive wireless video cameras, webcams, security electronics, and other remote control and wireless electronics that simplify your life and provide entertainment.
Gadget Universe
concentrates on portable and pocket sized gifts, gadgets and products. Their inventory includes watches, clocks, binoculars, compasses, security systems, automotive accessories, and toys.
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Consumer Electronics News
TIME Magazine,
July 12, 1963:
JAPAN: Small Wonder
The American market looks so promising to Tokyo's Sony Corp., which makes small but thinks big, that it has sent its co-founder to Manhattan to stay for two years. The U.S. already absorbs half of the company's exports, and last year brought in 20% of its sales of $63 million, but Co-Founder Akio Morita, 42, intends to raise Sony's volume. Sony, the world's best-known maker of transistor radios, ships 700,000 tiny sets a year to more than 70 countries, and has helped to turn a generation of teenagers into strolling jukeboxes.
Addicted to quality, Sony has done as much as any company to demolish the cheap and imitative image of Japanese goods, and is being widely imitated itself. An Italian manufacturer for a while sold a Sony-looking transistor radio called "Somy." Back home, electrical companies from Mitsubishi to Matsushita this year rushed out portable TV sets to compete with Sony's battery-powered, transistorized models, which come with 5-in. or 8-in. screens and weigh only 8 lbs...
...Though heightened competition challenges Sony's current U.S. sales rate of 15,000 midget TV sets per month, President Masaru Ibuka, 55, an engineer, plans to double production by late autumn and points out that he has overcome hurdles before. After spending the war trying to concoct a heat-ray gun for the Japanese armed forces, Ibuka, along with Morita, assembled $530 and eight displaced technicians in a bomb-gutted department store. They started making radio gear.
...After U.S. scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories developed the transistor, Sony became the first non-U.S. company to make transistor radios. Older and bigger Japanese companies soon began competing with the upstart, but Sony held its own by successfully invading the U.S. market despite a 12.5% tariff. It now turns out 50 models of radios and a broad line of highly original tape recorders, microphones, semiconductors.
Instant Action. Helped by new products, Ibuka expects Sony's sales to rise 25% this year. Sony is working on a miniature color TV set and a lightweight, transistorized videotape recorder that turns out instant movies. This week Sony will deliver its first recorders to U.S. customers. The cost is still high ($10,900), but Sony expects to sell a thousand by next June-- mostly in the U.S.-- to schools, research labs, and even race tracks.
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See also:
QuickShop: Phone & Wireless
Photo and Video
Computers
Computer Peripherals
Musical Instruments
Movies, DVD & VHS
Music, mp3s, CDs, Cassette & LP
QuickShowbiz: mp3 News & Links
Classic Phonograph Articles:
An Evening With Edison 1878
Phono to Production 1888-94
Victor Talking Machine 1890-1929
Loud & Tube Victrolas 1898-1925
Classic Radio Articles:
Marconi's Wireless 1898-1899
The Wireless Telegraph 1899
Marconi-Grams 1902
Music by Wireless 1907
Radio Dancing - RCA 1916-1919
Audion Tube Described 1922
Classic Telegraph Articles:
Telegraph to Wireless 1851-1904
Telegraph-Electricity History 1852
The Atlantic Telegraph Cable 1866
Classic Telephone Articles:
Telephone & Inventor Bell 1877
Telephone's First Ten Years 1886
Telephone Operator Girls 1899
Consumer Electronics Links:
American Memory: The Gramophone
Wikipedia: Emile Berliner
Audio Annals: Emile Berliner
The Early Gramophone
Gram-O-Phone Canada
Berliner Museum, Montreal
Wikipedia: Eldridge R. Johnson
The Talking Machine
Nipperhead
Victor Talking Machines
IEEE: Victor Talking Machine
Victor VP Leon Douglass
Recording-History.org
BBC: A History of Vinyl
CJR: GE Corp. Timeline
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Factory Refurbished Electronics
Philips Electronics Outlet
allows you to get great deals on Philips or Magnavox brand renewed ("factory-refurbished") and new but discontinued products direct from the manufacturer, including TVs, DVD players, boom boxes & "walkman-type" portable audio, computer monitors, and more. Most products are shipped via UPS.
Second Act 
located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, offers great deals on refurbished consumer electronics, including HDTVs, PVRs, MP3 players, digital cameras, and more. They work to find the highest quality refurbished products available, selling great brands at deeply discounted prices.
Satellite Radio & Satellite TV
DishPronto
will provide 4 rooms of DISH Network satellite TV installed free, with free HDTV, plus a free Digital Video Recorder, if you agree to subscribe to DISH Network programming for as little as $19.99/month.
XM Satellite Radio
provides over 170 channels of 100% commercial-free music, sports, news, & talk. The XM Satellite Radio receivers (the hardware) sell for from $40 to $200. Subscriptions (the software) are as low as $9.99/Month (with a 3-year contract) to $12.95/Month (with a 3-month contract). You can also subscribe to listen to XM Radio
Online for just $2.99/month for six months.
SIRIUS Satellite Radio
is more than 120 channels of 100% commercial-free music, world-class sports, news, talk, and information. SIRIUS delivers content and quality that AM/FM radio can't, with built-in features like seeing the artist and song that is playing on the display.
Blank DVD-R/RW & CD-R/RW Media
YesBuy
carries all varieties of CD and DVD blank media, including LightScribe blank DVDs for less than $.50 in quantity, printable blank DVDs, and blank Blu-Ray discs. They sell CD and DVD sleeves for as low as 2 cents each in quantity. YesBuy also carries consumer electronics gear, including mp3 players, Flash memory, HDTVs and LCD flat panel displays, and more than 8,000 computer hardware, software and accessory items.
At
Super Media Store
you can save up to 70% on blank DVD-Rs, DVD-RWs, DVD+Rs, DVD+RWs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, flash memory, and printer ink cartridges. As of December, 2004, Super Media Store is selling
blank 8x DVDs for as low as 33˘ each in quantity, and the prices keep dropping. Blank DVD brand names include Ritek, Optodisc, Samsung, Memorex, Verbatim, Radius and ProDisc. They have a 30 day return guarantee for most media, 15 days for most hardware (see website for details). They ship via UPS to the US, including Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Alaska. The do not ship internationally.
Meritline
has low prices on blank optical media, including blank DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, as well as blank CD-R and CD-RW discs. They sell cases, sleeves, & labels for your discs, and DVD & CD "burners," as well DVD & CD recording software. They also sell blank Zip & Jaz discs, VHS tapes, and other media, flash memory (USB, MMC, SD, Compact Flash, memory stick, etc.), and other peripherals and accessories.
Flash Memory, SD Cards, Compact Flash, Memory Sticks, RAM...
EDGE Tech
offers "cutting edge" Computer Memory Upgrades, including RAM modules, Flash memory (SD, SDHC, Compact Flash, etc.), and USB portable hard drives, like the
400GB DiskGO! 3.5" Portable USB 2.0 & IEEE-1394 Hard Drive, and the
USB-powered 80GB DiskGO! 2.5" Ultra Portable USB 2.0 Hard Drive.
At
Crucial Memory (UK)
UK shoppers can save on top-quality CompactFlash, SD, MMC, or other memory for your MP3 player, digital camera handheld PC, or other device.
My Memory (UK)
sells memory for PCs, cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, digital cameras, and other digital devices. They also sell inkjet catridges, photo paper, batteries, and other accessories. They carry USB, CompactFlash, SD/MMC, MemoryStick, and other formats of flash memory, as well as PC DDR SDRAM, from makers including SanDisk, Lexar, Sony, Kingston, Magicstor, and others. My Memory is based in the UK, but will ship internationally.
Electronic Parts and Accessories, Networking, Wi-Fi, Wireless Connectivity
Radio Shack
which carries cables, connectors, parts, accessories and batteries, is described more fully in the superstores category.
Founded in 1976 as an electronics service company in Dayton, Ohio,
MCM Electronics
has become one of the premier distributors in the consumer electronics industry. MCM now stocks over 40,000 products from 600+ quality vendors. MCM's products include: computer hardware and peripherals, security and surveillance, wire and cable, audio and video equipment, tools, test equipment and much more.
Parts Express
sells thousands of electronic parts, plus parts-related items and electronics accessories. For almost 15 years Parts Express has supplied audio engineers, repair shops, commercial sound installers, home theater installers, speaker builders, car audio installers, DJ's, schools, hospitals, and hobbyist with the parts and accessories to make their installations profitable and professional. Their inventory includes home and car stereo and speaker building parts, telephone parts, cables, connectors, test equipment, tools, batteries, chemical products, and much more.
Founded in a garage in Hawthorne, California in 1983,
Belkin
is now the recognized global leader in connectivity solutions, with over 1,000 employees and sales topping $1 billion. They offer easy-to-set-up wireless and wired networking gear, accessories for iPod® players and XM player devices, and the first CableFree USB Hub. Their PureAV® brand, a line of cables, power, and digital wireless accessories, extracts the full performance potential from high-end home theater equipment.
Better Cables
manufactures their own high-performance audio/video cables for home theater and home audio systems. They are an 8-time inductee into AudioReview.com's Cable Hall of Fame. Their prices are lower than other audiophile cables because they are both the manufacturer and the retailer of the cables. For orders shipping to the US, they provide free ground shipping. They also ship internationally via UPS Expedited or UPS Express.
Battery Shops
Duracell Direct
sells batteries, adapters, and chargers for notebook computers, cell phones, cordless phones, camcorders, digital cameras, and more, including AA and AAA rechargeable batteries and chargers.
Batteries Plus
opened their first store in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1988. They now have over 255 brick and mortar stores from coast to coast. Batteries Plus offers a large selection of batteries for laptop computers, camcorders, cell phones, and almost anything else, including rechargeable cells and standard alkaline batteries.
eBatts
carries a huge selection of batteries and power supplies for laptop computers, camcorders, cell phones, and other mobile accessories. As of this writing,
eBatts provides free ground shipping for all web orders weighing less than 200 lbs anywhere in the continental US.
Interstate Batteries
offers their own brand of low-cost standard batteries & custom electronics batteries with free shipping on all battery orders with a minimum order of $35 (use the "coupon code" linkshare01).
Shops that specialize in Telecom gear & services (including cell phone shops, long distance services, wireless services, etc.) are now on a separate page:
Phone & Wireless
