Oh... so that's who sold them! Sure explains the year an aunt & uncle gave them as Christmas gifts to all the younger kids in the family.
I remember my parents being impressed with a Capehart compact stereo with dual 8-track decks, and my brother buying his first stereo--a Soundesign--from the same store later-on. As for myself: a tip from a friend about a $5.00 cassette personal stereo led to my "big" electronics purchase from K-Mart, which served me well... well until I got a used Panasonic AM/FM/Cassette from a local garage sale.
Yep, Capehart, Soundesign and Fisher All-In-One Stacks killed component stereos as we had known them. It was so bad the new owners of Marantz made a deal with Kmart to sell the new BOTL Marantz there. Mura wasn't bad but it wasn't great, it was priced right, had a marketing campaign and they were more advanced with black casings when most players were silver.
Well, mine was Midnight Blue with a silver bezel around the tuner display... but at least it wasn't like the $5.00 Crown cassette personal stereo I bought: Loosely attached cassette door [that easily got lost] with only stop, fast-forward and play functions... and did I mention?: IT WAS PALE PINK!! And opening the case--to prepare for painting it--revealed the simplest and most-minimal of mechanisms and circuitry I've ever seen in a device, let alone a personal stereo. Oh, and the Soundesign... it wasn't long before the volume control developed a static problem... with no amount of Deox-It could solve. I still remember sitting on my friend's front-room floor, with it awkwardly between my legs as I attempted replacement of the reostat with a factory-ordered piece... all because I couldn't get the case further apart, and I wasn't comfortable with giving a friend "junk".
From Stereo Review 1982 I found mine, the build quality isn't bad, they do have a little weight to them.
Mura, working it in 1981. The small headphones were the key to the Walkman but everyone was quick to copy them.
Found another ad, this is for JC Penny, a US based department store that's still (barely) in operation. Mura was really pumping out the headphones, this is the Mura Red Set VII for 1982.
THAT reminds me of the amplified pair of speakers I got from Radio Shack, for use with my personal devices. One of the channels died and I've been meaning to get it repaired. Especially since I took an old shoelace and made a over-the-neck strap for it, which--sadly--makes it look like a bra on me when worn!
Check out the Numark I posted in the mini-boombox section, it sounds like yours. After doing a lot of research, some of the add-on speakers are really nice, I've got a small collection and the builds are top quality with metal enclosures, metal grills and small speakers with huge magnets.
Oh, the legendary DAK catalog... The first place I learned of CD-ROM, back in '87! And also where I saw a auto-reverse turntable that Techmoan reviewed fairly recently. And also, carriers of the notorious Citizen CBM-1000 CD-player.
I had one of the Mura speaker systems. They are nice but with one big caveat: there is an ‘auto off after some time of silence’ feature. Not good when you are listening to an online stream via iPad/etc. that keeps buffering. The durn Muras would constantly shut off during this period.