# Ken Crane's Closing



## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Folks in Southern California will have one less chain to visit when shopping for home theater audio. Ken Crane's will close all stores over the next two months.
more: http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/columns/2010/06/hdtv-almanac-ken-cranes-closing.php


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Yes, I heard this over the weekend. Sadly it's no big deal. I'd been in there three or four times in the last decade. There was never a great selection, although they did carry the really high-end stuff, higher than Magnolia. 

It's a shame when businesses close but this one was not a major player in my life.


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## drded (Aug 23, 2006)

I can remember when they were t-h-e place to find LaserDiscs. They seemed to have the best mail order selection anywhere!

Many moons ago!

DAve


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Bummer! I used them as my source of laserdiscs when I was stationed overseas back in the late 80's and 90's. Great service. I must have purchased over 100 from them. It's sad to see them go.


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## paulman182 (Aug 4, 2006)

I thought that sounded familiar. I had their Lazerdisc catalog back in the day, but I don't think I ever ordered anything.


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## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

I saw this in the trades. Too bad. I bought LaserDiscs from them, too.

This article doesn't say it, but Ken Crane's went from their best year ever in 2006 to out of business four years later. Wowzah. It's obviously the economy, but it's also a changing marketplace. In 2006, people were buying HDTV flat screens like crazy. Not any anymore. Ken Crane's has always had a great emphasis on video, and when the market - and their margins - fell apart, so did they.

Here's the article in T.W.I.C.E.


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## employee3 (Aug 15, 2006)

Oh people are still buying HD flat screens like crazy (that's all that really available anymore), but they are buying them from Walmart and Target.

People don't really need to depend on sales people either. You can get all the info and opinions you need from the internet. How many times have you walked into a CE retailer and knew far more than the salesperson... nearly everytime for me.

The land of salespeople not being salespeople is here. There are no more salespeople in CE. They are all clerks or associates or team members... no commision = no reason to be knowledgeable.


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## fluffybear (Jun 19, 2004)

Stopped in there a few times when I lived in Southern California, always thought they were more expensive compared to the other guys..


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## Bigriff (Nov 5, 2010)

And, tv's are very low margin.


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## V'ger (Oct 4, 2007)

Just to post a minor correction. The AV hardware people and the laserdisc people were two different companies (father and son) and were located across the street from each other on Beach Blvd in Westminster. (I know there were more than 1 hardware store, but to my knowledge, there was only the one laserdisc store). The laserdisc outfit was sold many years ago to Image Entertainment and then went to online DVD sales (PlanetDVD?) which eventually was bought out by another internet DVD retailer. 

I was a frequent visitor to the laserdisc store in the 1990s. I would make two or three business trips to LA each year and made the drive to Westminster every time and lugged a huge number of laserdiscs back via airline carry on. My last visit there was when they were finally phasing out laserdiscs and going DVD exclusive (1999) and I found nothing DVD that I couldn't get locally.

I was in the Beach Blvd AV hardware store across the street one time in the mid-'90s. I remember seeing the original 42" Philips Plasma TV there on display for $45,000.

Probably the last thing to kill them was the California Energy requirements for TVs. The mid-to-high end TVs probably couldn't be sold under the new rules and created a gap in their biggest market segment.

Sad to hear they are gone.


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