

Legendary Akihabara Radio Store closing its doors after six decades - Sukotto
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/25/national/legendary-akihabara-radio-store-closing-its-doors-after-six-decades

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fidotron
It seems the world's radio/electronics community was first in New York (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Row](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Row)
), then Akihabara, and now in Shenzhen, where the details of electronics
outlets that appear seem completely mindblowing. For example:
[http://www.evilmadscientist.com/2009/a-visit-to-the-
electron...](http://www.evilmadscientist.com/2009/a-visit-to-the-electronics-
markets-of-shenzhen/)

~~~
cleaver
Shenzhen looks impressive. I haven't been there, but it looks similar to the
Zhongguancun district in Beijing.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongguancun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongguancun)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I find zhongguancun to be very monotonous compared to akihabara; most of the
stores just sell the same junk. There are only a couple malls that specialize
in lower level components. Still none of the crazy stuff I could easily fond
in Tokyo.

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veidr
I used to walk through that place every time I went to Akihabara. It reminded
me of something out of Neuromancer with the tiny stalls and bins of weird
high-tech (and low-tech) components, with the Japanese merchants and the
chatter of all the foreign visitors.

But I have to admit, despite walking through those cramped corridors dozens of
times, I never did actually buy anything there. I still go to Akihabara when I
need something _right now_ , but 9 times out of 10 I just buy it at the
colossal 8-story Yodobashi Camera on the other side of the station (erected
several years ago).

So it's not too surprising they can't make that cool little electronic
component shantytown mall work anymore.

~~~
doktrin
Ditto. I lived in Tokyo for 2 very formative teenage years in the late 90's.
Akihabara always felt like a bit of a wonderland, but not one where I actually
spent many of my limited funds. I'm sad to hear that mall is closing, as the
atmosphere was truly one of a kind.

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w1ntermute
This is a bit of an exaggeration. The prices were pretty high and the people
weren't all that knowledgeable. And there's another similar market right
across the street that's twice as large.

~~~
new299
yea, still it'll be sad to see it go. Most of the interesting parts are
elsewhere in Akihabara however and I don't think we'll really be missing out
on much. I hope a bunch of the markets will find homes elsewhere in Akihabara
though.

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rtpg
The stores are mainly one-item things (one guy selling only lightbulbs,
another selling only security cameras). But there are stores in the area that
sell lighbulbs AND security cameras close by. Most of the stores in it have
equivalent stores in the area anyways.

The one thing that I'd miss is the "antique" electronics on the second floor.
There was a decent amount of interesting stuff seen up there.

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aeberbach
I'm sorry to see any store there go. I used to spend at least a full day
walking around Akihabara every time I went to Tokyo for work and always came
home with plenty of stuff I didn't even know I wanted. I still have various
"Engineer" brand tools, while not the absolute best they were relatively cheap
and well made. I was mainly into building home audio here then and found
aluminium cases that were good enough to put next to commercial equipment, a
long way from the angular steel stuff I could find online. There were machined
knobs, actual ALPS potentiometers, and in the audiophile stores crazy stuff
like $1000 binding posts and tantalum resistors with gold-plated leads, nice
to look at but I wasn't crazy. What made it great was not the amazing range of
stuff or expert advice (language barrier...) but the Japan-ness of it all -
maybe tiny, maybe outdated, but everything presented with pride. Of course you
can get it all and more online but it isn't the same. Online you don't see
lovingly restored TEAC reel-to-reel systems next to Kenwood FM tuners and SGI
Indy boxes, all perfectly clean and ready to go. If I was in Tokyo today I'd
head right for Akihabara, and maybe buy an extra suitcase to get it all home.

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mrcactu5
I remember going to Yodobashi Akiba and being confused. Then I went into the
small shops, I couldn't read the names of the parts. Then I ate ramen and
bought a toy train.

~~~
arsemouflon
That's how I would have done it, too.

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mje__
I found a similar thing happening in Yongsan - Seoul's electronics market. I
visited recently after a 5-year absence and was saddened to see so many
shuttered stores.

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jpatokal
This is only one of three similar stores closing. The other two, Radio Center
([http://www.radiocenter.jp/](http://www.radiocenter.jp/)) and Tokyo Radio
Depart[ment Store]
([http://www.tokyoradiodepart.co.jp/](http://www.tokyoradiodepart.co.jp/)),
are still alive and kicking... although rather feebly, and it's a probably a
matter of time until they go as well.

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arsemouflon
"The warren of small stores selling paraphernalia such as resistors,
capacitors, LEDs and soldering irons became a symbol of Akihabara over the
years."

... paraphernalia, allright. How does that journalist imagine he could write
this article without any of them? :-D

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_Adam
Sad to hear, this was one of my favorite places in Akihabara. They have really
good selection in tools and parts, I got some mini-XLR connectors and
inductors. The first few guys I asked didn't have them, but they pointed me to
the stall that did. They didn't speak English, so I wrote "18 uH" on my phone
and they knew what I meant.

It's not like those parts would be hard to find online. But they had all that
stuff in stock, in their tiny stalls.

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justincormack
I always thought it was what the places in Bladerunner where the people who
made the snake scales were was based on. You would go along and be told that
the man over there had that particular kind of resistor.

~~~
nickzoic
More like Taipei, I think ... which also has vast electronic doodad markets.
Well worth a poke around, even if you don't have a use-case for a snake or an
SCR the size of a beer can :-)

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bane
I've heard you can go across the street to some bigger stores.

If anybody's in Seoul, the Yongsan electronics market is similar and if you
want to supersize it head to Shenzhen.

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kbar13
similar location in Taipei:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guang_Hua_Digital_Plaza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guang_Hua_Digital_Plaza)

~~~
imrehg
and even there (here:), most of the good stuff is outside of the plaza in the
neighbouring streets, and underground stores. It's really fun, though.

