Brighton Listening Cafe


Place looks interesting - Curious if anyone local can add a little to: the sound / coffee / cake questions conjured by these pics.

J A Z Z K I S S A L A Z Y B I R D
Unit 22 Open Market, Marshalls Row, Brighton and Hove BN14JU

Wed-Fri 11-3, Sat 10-4

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Only open for 18hrs a week, Japanman would open for more hours in a single day. Severe lack of commitment .

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The Open Market is a bit of a weird place, it doesn’t know if it is a basic cheap market (which it was originally) with the greasiest of greasy spoons and shopping bag ladies in the poorer part of town, or a hip trendy place with Asian food shops etc
The hip trendy shops tend to be transient as they fail and disappear, mainly because this is not the Laines, doesn’t have the footfall and probably doesn’t feature in any tourist, day tripper blog. I doubt many people apart from locals even know it is there.
Mind you it is always trying to re-invent itself and it is a number of years now since I lived in the area, but when I did I rarely went there.

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Hope there’s no talking. Pointing is adequate for coffee and jazz.

All I’ve done is look at the pictures, but there’s a few quid’s worth of vintage valve amps there, including a pair of Pye PF91s and a Marantz 8B (each with its associated control units). You’ll be able to say more about the turntables than I can.

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Three hammertone 301’s is a nice touch. The corner GRF Tannoys have 15" Reds which can sound nice. They have a bunch of other kit, a little Western Electric stuff. And an Avo tester behind the bar in some pics which if running would be a cool service. Hi, test my PX4’s and a late sil vous plait.

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Gotta love that, look how many drippers they have set up!

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I might give it a go on Thursday…:face_with_monocle:

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That looks like the same corner of the room which has been rearranged between pics.
The 301s don’t have any tonearms either.

Sure they move stuff around - In other pics the 301s have Decca arm / carts.

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Very cool. I want to do a day road trip with Alfie to Brighton,so might have to find out opening times

Pretty sure Alfie would love an 11 hour round trip to look at a hifi :+1:

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Tell him if he’s very good in the car you’ll let him listen to it too :wink:. And it will be jazz.

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It had better be jazz.

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Looking at what’s on display Jazz and funk

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That’s all right then. If it survives I have pals in the area, so will visit if poss. One of them made the music to *The Moomins * years ago, so could take that for a listen.

At least it is there. I contacted Laithwaite’s to see if I could convince them to open a jazz listening bar in Norwich city centre, offering to set up my system and play jazz records for a couple of hours at lunch time, again evening.

I suggested they find a city centre location, lots of windows (best on a corner) with sofas and stuffed chairs, tables and wooden chairs, potted plants and trees. They could put wine in dispensers ( glasses underneath) along one wall, that sell 1/3, 1/2 or full measures programed at the machine, put glass under requested wine, swipe with card and get the wine. Someone from Laithwaite’s (overall site manager) would be greeting customers as they arrive, sell them however much they wish to load onto their wine dispenser debit card and give them a sheet listing of all the wines on display in the dispensers that day (with an area to write down their tasting notes under each tasted wine and the web-site details for ordering wine for home delivery).

A sub-contractor would make tapas, or cheese and grapes, whatever and serve them at the sofa, table, chair what have you. The sub-contractor would also be responsible for cleaning the place, dishes and restocking, Laithwaite’s the wine dispensers, and me the jazz music.

No response. Anyone else try?

Naked Wines might be a better option Mark, as they’re based in Norwich?

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I probably wouldn’t have led with ‘jazz’ :joy:

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Confusing a hobby fantasy with a viable business?

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Entirely the wrong place to dump this but…

Over the last ten years the high end audio market has changed. There are many reasons for this but perhaps it’s useful to look at how things were for many preceding years. The audiophile community ‘cup’ used to be fairly consistently half full. As the elders aged / lost interest younger people came in to fill the void.

Over the last ten or so years this half full ‘cup’ has drained, the elders move on but they are not replaced, in conjunction with this, prices of high end have risen disproportionately as the ‘business’ thrashes about trying to make bank (See Munich now, even people I know with considerable wealth consider many offerings ‘insanely overpriced’.) Look at the average age of show attendees:

What is the solution to this? In short hifi needs to be made cool again. Not a depot for retirees but attractively and actively youthfully cool. Think back to the 60’s 70’s 80’s audio equipment was viewed as cool / vital / exciting by a considerable young audience. This created and sustained a market with a far larger ‘cup’. Perhaps some of us are here specifically due to audio’s desirability back then? I wonder how many 20 something members are on analogue audio forums today?

Many in the audio business still cling to the old methods of marketing but as said with an ever shrinking market paired with ever rising prices you don’t have to be smart to see something has to give.

I believe the traditional shows / shops and ‘Highend’ in general will narrow further if it sticks to the old methods of dwindling magazines / shrinking shows / micro niche forums and ever rising prices.

What are the alternatives? Giving people who have a love of music but no exposure to the pleasures of audio an ‘experience’. People like Devon Turnbull are doing just this - His market is large and non trad audiophile. He is doing something cool displaying audio in non Audiophile settings, championing it’s style and getting people into making speakers and amps in workshops and it has caught on.

Audiophile cafe’s / listening venues / pop up events / collaborations with artists (See Friendly Pressure) or dedicated listening rooms like D_S_P London with their Western electric full kit are slowly filling and entirely new cup (I only hope it matures)

Jef Jackson and Dave Slagle are doing a lot of installs to 'non trad audiophiles and the same can be said for many more. I can say from my micro experience in the last four years we’ve sold to very very few traditional audiophiles (Not that we’re high end but the trend is undeniable) - Most have been serious record collectors / bars / hotels / musicians / fashion people etc - All of this conducted on social media not through any ‘old world’ channel… I’m not alone here even if it is because 30 somethings consume information from different sources it does point to a pivot in the marketing ‘mix’ in terms of positioning, messaging and targeting. (Translated as traditional Audio is operating in an ever shrinking echo chamber)

Johnathan Weiss from OMA recently said Highend brick and mortar stores / shows etc are dead in one of his YouTube films (This coming from a guy who spent god knows what on his room at Munich)

Take this pic from GQ mag and contrast it with the trad show above to illustrate the difference I’m poorly outlining

You might find all this a sack of shit / abhorrent or straight up depressing but apart from the ‘outsider nerd’ the hope for highend longer term is in the lap of hipsters / fashionistas / dj’s and / trendies / Influencers / style conscious and the generally bourgeois who have disposable income who perceive audio as 'cool / interesting / important and fun from there perhaps it becomes aspirational again and the cup can start to fill once more…?

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