Audiophile cafes hit London
ONE Sunday evening in September, the main hall of a community centre in London was decked out with ribbons, balloons and a gyrating disco ball that marked a sonic sweet spot – the optimal position for partygoers to enjoy the clean, punchy (and not too loud) sound of five towering speakers arranged strategically around the room, piping a playlist of pop, funk, rock and dance floor gems for all generations.
The Lucky Cloud sound system was in town. Following the lead of a cult party series created by the DJ and impresario David Mancuso in 1970s New York, the organisers prioritise audio quality above all else. With Mancuso’s blessing, they began running events in London in 2003, starting a slowburn trend that has spread around this city: Numerous listening clubs now invite people to experience recorded music played through hi-fi rigs that most humble audiophiles can only dream about.
The newest is Spiritland, a cafe-bar in central London that claims to offer “the best sound system in the world” – an imposing array that dominates the room like a shrine in a temple. Two sets of bulky yet elegant speakers finished in vintage wood sit on either side of an Italian amplifier with colourful valves and tubes that glow orange when the lights are low.
“I always wanted to go somewhere which could be all about musical appreciation, to hear someone dig really deeply into their record collection and explore t`heir private passions,” said Paul Noble, Spiritland’s creative director. After two successful years with a pop-up venture at a restaurant in East London, his team found a permanent home and invested heavily in a customised system, designed by the British company Living Voice. It is valued at just under a half-million dollars.
“These speakers were built totally without compromise,” Noble said. “When you have equipment this good, it can deliver such high quality that it emotionally connects you to the music. We’re not afraid to say that listening to music is a very magical thing.”
That mystical philosophy echoes back to New York, where Mancuso obsessed over the hi-fi setup for his weekly Loft parties in the 1970s and ‘80s. Purity was paramount: Mancuso stripped away mixing equipment used by many DJs, imagining that fewer cables and boxes would liberate the sound waves and, consequently, his guests on the dance floor.
Tim Lawrence, the author of books including Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979, explained: “The DJ didn’t mix or perform tricks on the equaliser. The DJ divested themselves of their ego, stopped trying to interfere with the music, and they just chose really good tunes.” When Mancuso had the idea of taking his Loft concept to London in 2003, he called Lawrence — and the Lucky Cloud sound system was born.
The growth of the audiophile scene in London parallels a resurgence in global vinyl sales, which hit a 28-year high in 2016. High-fidelity streaming services like Tidal and home sound systems like Sonos represent a philosophical shift to quality over convenience in digital consumption, but the tactile charm and full sound of vinyl are here to stay.
At a recent Classic Album meeting, a pair of Klipsch La Scala speakers (valued at $8,000) were installed in the basement bar of an East London hotel on either side of a Rega P9 turntable at centre stage. The audience sat in rapt silence for New Order’s 1983 record Power, Corruption & Lies, taking in every detail of the sparkling electro-pop riffs, soaring vocals and bouncy polyrhythmic beats.
In Dalston, in northeast London, the Brilliant Corners restaurant lives up to its name: Large floor-standing speakers by Klipsch (worth $6,000 each) are in each corner of the main room. The venture was opened three years ago by Amit and Aneesh Patel, brothers who had discovered the pleasure of deep listening at Lucky Cloud parties.
“I hope this audiophile movement questions the model about what kind of sound systems are installed in public places,” said Amit Patel, who left his career as a lawyer to open the restaurant.
Aneesh Patel observed, “In the big nightclubs, they spend thousands on interiors, toilets, whatever, but they have sound systems that distort all the time, and everyone thinks it’s normal to leave with your ears ringing.”
Brilliant Corners also hosts pop-up events like Classic Album Sundays or the occasional Jazz Kissaten – a listening session run by Gearbox Records, a label and mastering studio that works exclusively with vinyl. In Japan, a typical kissaten is a coffee shop with audiophile equipment and a huge jazz collection.
“You’re in a tiny room, and the immense speakers swallow half of it,” said the founder of Gearbox, Darrel Sheinman, who visits Japan every year.
Sheinman, an entrepreneur and record collector, started Gearbox in 2009 as a hobby, and it became his full-time job in 2012. His studio is packed with rare analogue apparatus including a Haeco Scully vinyl-cutting lathe and a Studer C37 tape recorder, thought to be one of two in existence. The label’s catalogue includes jazz, avant-garde electronica and American folk, featuring emerging artists and archive sessions from the BBC vaults or other sources.
“In a world that doesn’t linger too long on anything, we’re trying to bring a bit of ritual back into listening to music,” said Adam Sieff, the marketing and sales director at Gearbox. “Take a deep breath, sit down, take the music a little bit more seriously – and enjoy it.”