People have mentioned Heathkit a few times in the Home Audio Forum. A link off the Technics page I posted led me to https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Consumer/Heathkit-1974-03.pdf Multiply prices by just over five to get 2020 prices No wonder they couldn't compete $650 ($3250 in 2020 money) for a TV Kit which didn't even include the case (which was another $140 !) when you could buy a ready made, 21" Panasonic Tv for $450 in 1972. Saying you had built your own TV would sound good in an interview for any technical job though.
I think in the later days the buyers were students in repair that wanted to learn how the equipment was put together.
True. There was always a strong educational element to Heathkit. I have mentioned before that my college project when I was 16 was building a Stereo Amplifier. We weren't allowed to use a kit though. Part of the activity was finding all the required parts in the RS catalogue and putting together an order. Once I was earning enough and had a Ham Radio licence (in about 1987) I decided it would be fun to build one of their transceivers, only to find they had all been discontinued about a year earlier.
I had a few friends that built equipment, I even did a electronic tic-tac-toe game when I was around 12. Back then, besides Radio Shack, there were a few electronics stores that had everything, boxes, knobs, components, power supplies, everything to build something electronic. Heathkit always had a aura of quality but they couldn't compete against 80's mass-production.
