Seattle's Shibuya HiFi is a listening bar.While guests can chat and sip cocktails in the lounge, they leave behind their drinks, and their shoes, as they settle into the back room to enjoy full-length albums in a communal setting.
An evening might feature anything from Bjork to David Bowie.One fan, who showed us her Bowie tattoo, said, "I had to be here! It's the closest thing I could get to a David Bowie concert."These curated sessions (Shibuya hosts around 80 a month) regularly sell out.
People are buying $20 tickets to listen to albums they could hear at home for free."That seems to me to be something that people are really rediscovering: that pleasure and the beauty of focus and intentional listening," said Quentin Ertel, the co-owner of Shibuya HiFi, which takes its name from a neighborhood in Tokyo.In Japan, listening bars (often called jazz kissas) started gaining popularity back in the 1930s.
But similar venues have exploded in the U.S.in recent years, popping up everywhere from Minnesota (like noma hifi in Edina), to Missouri (XO HiFi in Kansas City), to Colorado (ESP HiFi in Denver).
A "new wave" of listening barsArtist and engineer Devon Turnbull describes these spaces devoted to listening as a "new wave" of listening bars.Turnbull designs high-end, handmade audio equipment for his company Ojas.
While his speakers often end up in private living rooms, he's also created larger public listening spaces.Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt Museum, in New York City, is currently showcasing what Turnbull has called his "HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No.
3," installed in what was once Andrew Carnegie's private library."Pursuit is a really important part of the title," said Turnbull."I am not here to say that I have made the ultimate sound system.
This is about my pursuit as a builder, as someone who's passionate about building audio equipment and listening to music through it." Turnbull works out of a warehouse in Brooklyn's Navy Yard.His interest in a...