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[title]As a child Nam Tran grew up obsessed with hi-fi systems. ‘At school I was recording radio shows onto tape decks,’ he recalls. ‘And then cutting out the talking to make my own playlists.’ He’s telling me this as we sit in Ōdiobā, his slick, three-floor audio bar in Stockport which opened earlier this year. Beautiful towering speakers, encased in warm wood, with shelves of records, dominate the top floor. For the horns on one of the speaker set-ups, he drove 36 hours to collect them from a specialist maker in Germany who had built them by hand.
This level of audiophile geekery in a bar may have once been rare, not only in Stockport but in the whole of the UK. But in recent years, the number of bars with high-end speaker systems – often called listening bars, hi-fi bars or audiophile bars – are growing. ‘It seems to be getting more and more popular,’ says Tran, who also owned NAM, an audiophile bar and kitchen, in Manchester before running costs got too expensive. ‘And I’m a massive advocate for people who want to spend their time in such establishments. If you love music then why would you not want to listen to it in the best possible way?’
The origin of these places can usually be traced to the listening cafes of Japan, many of which popped up post-war, playing modern jazz, blues and rock. Others, such as the Lion Café in Shibuya, Tokyo, date all the way back to 1923 and play purely classical, inviting people to sit and listen in velour seats with a bust of Beethoven’s head overlooking them.
Japanese listening bars tend to pull vinyl from epic in-house record collections and play them through immaculate, usually bespoke, sound systems while usually serving up cocktails, whisky or tea and coffee. It was trips to such places that inspired the founders of Spiritland, one of London’s longest running audio bars, which has been in King’s Cross since 2016, to open in the first place.
‘They had this really incredible, elegant, considered listening bar scene,’ says Paul Noble, Spiritland’s Artistic Director. ‘Where you’ll go and hear an album from start to finish and the bars are divided by genre, so you’ll have blues, jazz, classical etc. These places just showed a real reverence and respect for the music, which I don’t think we had in London. That was one of our inspirations, but because London has a certain energy and drinking culture we are very much a bar – we don’t expect people to sit in silence – but our sound system is off the scale.’ Spiritland’s speaker system has since built up such a reputation that everyone from Beck to the Beach Boys via IDLES have all used it for listening parties and album playbacks.
Venues that once had a reputation as being elitist places for equipment geeks have been spun into bouncing spots
But in recent years, the sight of stacked sound systems – the kinds normally reserved for fully kitted out nightclubs – in bars, where you may be nibbling on small plates or sipping high-end cocktails, has grown enormously. In London alone there’s places such as Brilliant Corners, Jumbi, All My Friends, Equal Parts, System, Seed Library and Nine Lives – as well as 2024 additions Jazu, The Shrub and Shutter and The Marquee Moon. And with Ōdiobā in Stockport, and Mamasan up in Glasgow, the trend still seems to be gathering pace in the rest of the UK. In Sheffield too, a recent opening has been Grub Records and Wine Bar: while not a listening bar by definition, it takes a similar approach of merging a natural wine bar with a record shop and custom sound system that sees a variety of selectors swing by for intimate parties. Such places that may once would have had a reputation as being stuffy, chin-strokey or elitist places for equipment geeks have now often been spun into bouncing spots.
And while a lot of them have a similar aesthetic – warm lighting, wood-cased speakers – there’s not a uniform approach to these places. Some are more food-focused, chilled, and have open deck policies or offer ‘deep listening’ sessions, which lean more towards the reverent and immersive approach you tend to find in Japan. Others are more DJ-focused and run until the wee hours on a weekend.
But not all of them can be linked to Japan – some have spawned up very much on their own terms. ‘There is also a real cult following for hi-fi places in Vietnam,’ says Tran, whose family all grew up in Đà Lạt and it’s where he picked up his love of audio from. For Jumbi in Peckham – set up by Bradley Zero and Nathanael Colours to celebrate the sounds and flavours of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora – they wanted to tap into history a little closer to home. ‘What we really wanted to create was a ‘‘Windrush living room’’,’ says Rudi Minto de Wijs, Head of Curatorial. ‘Something that felt like our grandparents’ home – that house party in the living room vibe.’ To attain this, Jumbi has placed a real focus on community-led events: they host everything from weekly cooking sessions for locals to charity fundraisers. And also, against all trends, Jumbi is pulling in Gen Z audiences too, with nearly 200 young people turning up for events like their inclusive jam sessions.
While the vibes at these places vary hugely, the connection is usually the system, which tends to dominate the eyeline. ‘I wouldn’t strictly call us an audio hi-fi bar,’ says William Campbell-Rowntree from Nine Lives, a hidden basement bar on Bermondsey Street in London. ‘We are a table service cocktail bar but we do have a handmade quadraphonic sound system, which is essential to what we do because we are as obsessed about music as we are about our drinks.’
So, what’s driving the trend? ‘You have to give people a reason to leave the house,’ suggests Rosie Robertson of Jazu in London’s Deptford. ‘So being able to offer something to someone that they don’t have at home. Most people don’t have access to really amazing systems and clarity of sound. Anyone can access any song at any time but there’s a growing interest in this idea of either communal listening or quality of listening that feels like it’s driving this.’ This is backed up elsewhere too: Pitchblack Playback runs events across the country, playing classic albums and premieres on powerful sound systems in the pitch dark, in order to heighten the listening experience.
Most people don’t have access to really amazing clarity of sound at home
Some view what they do more as an elevated bar experience with a USP – with also stressing that the Insta-friendly aesthetics of big speakers, rich wood surfaces, and walls of vinyl doesn’t hurt when pulling in people – but others are carving out a space that feels like a bit of an alternative to typical nights out. ‘We find that it’s a lighter experience for potentially a slightly more mature crowd,’ says Stuart Glen from The Marquee Moon and All My Friends. ‘People go through phases in their life and they don’t necessarily want to have a full, mad rave experience anymore and they are quite happy to have a quality drink, maybe some food, and listen to some good music in more of a laid back environment.’
Glen also runs London nightclub The Cause. ‘It’s quite a commitment for people to go to a club, you’ve got to go quite far out, buy tickets, stay late quite – it’s quite an investment,’ he says. ‘We opened the first All My Friends as a place for a lot of the people who would come to our events and really love music but would like something a bit more easy going and not so in your face. That worked so we’ve tried it again.’
These bars are proving to be a win-win set-up: DJs love them because they can play through a stacked system with less expectation to play bangers to an audience who have paid top dollar, while punters also seem to be relishing the access to such a combination without having to fork out. ‘I will always want this to be a free place,’ says Tran. ‘Just come down and listen to the system. And if people can’t afford to buy drinks, or they don’t drink alcohol, have coffee or tea.’
So, with nightclubs in an increasingly dire state, closing at record levels, and everyone being skint, are audio bars acting as competition to clubs? Most don’t think so. ‘They’re both equally important to the ecology of music and culture,’ says Minto de Wijs. Campbell-Rowntree adds: ‘I wouldn’t say that this is trying to replace clubs. I think hi-fi audio bars are more trying to elevate record listening rather than mirror the club experience.’
What it is seemingly providing is something of a middle ground between the club and bar worlds. ‘It’s an alternative,’ says Minto de Wijs. ‘Having the kind of intimate experience that only a listening bar can provide is invaluable. It just represents something different. There hasn’t really been a major alternative to going out that has taken shape in a long time.’