This past Thursday, I was in Vancouver for a medical check-up and following my appointment, I checked in at two of my favourite Salavtion Army outlets. I limited myself to one purchase, as there were a couple of turntables at each outlet worth picking up - one was a Garrard changer and the other a Philips - both from about the early 70's. But, I settled on a Realistic SPA-100 power amplifier. What a neat unit! I powered it on at the store, but didn't do a full test of it. It was a bit of a gamble, as all electronic sales are final. I felt good about the unit as it looked like it had been well-taken care of. The purchase price was $49.99 CAD. There is little information about this particular power amplifier, but it does have some neat features. First of all, it has some serious weight to it and produces 100 w.p.c. @ 8 ohms. It has a volume control, so you can connect the source components directly to the power amplifier without a preamplifier (except turntable without phono stage). It has a seven-band per channel equalizer and switchable LED power meters for 2 watts or 200 watts range. From the internet: It was produced in the mid-80's and may have been built by Pioneer for Tandy with a limited production run in Canada, only. I may look through my online Radio Shack magazines to find the model. In a magazine review it peaked at 147 wp.c. before clipping. And a video of it in action: Nando.
That is cool, it must have been for a very targeted market. I'm not seeing anything in my searches. No UL listing on the back so it might not have been sold down here. If I had to guess, it would be for a DJ?
Possibly meant for a public address system? It has that over-built design meant for being used for long durations at a decent volume. Nando.
PA wouldn't be stereo? I'm sticking with the DJ or ice rinks, we have a ton of rinks with CD/cassette players, they have to be amped by something......
