Always were, now more promoted

Bay Bloor Radio Website - March 14, 2025

 

Bay Bloor Radio Website - March 14, 2025

As a teenager in Toronto in the 1970s, Bay Bloor Radio was my local stereo store. I worked up the street and would stop in on my lunch hour to look and drool over equipment that was far beyond my budget.

The staff tolerated young tire kickers like me, knowing full well that I'd age into Bay Bloor's target demographic. (As I later did.)

I would usually see the store's owner and founder, Sol Mandlsohn, out on the sales floor interacting with customers and generally keeping an eye on things.

Back in my early days shopping at Bay Bloor there was lots of McIntosh, Pioneer, and Sony equipment on display, and even some Bang & Olufsen.

But looking at the firm's website now, in the era of tariffs, Canadian equipment has pride of place. Of the four brands feature on the front page of the site, two are made in Canada (Moon and Totem), one is designed in Canada (Bluesound), and the fourth is from the United Kingdom (Bowers & Wilkins).

Bay Bloor still sells lots of US brands such as JBL, McIntosh and Marantz, but is not putting them at the top of the front page of the website.