I know that place. It’s just a few miles up the road from me. I will have to go and take look.
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Harsh
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Easy tiger - partnered correctly they’re not too bad.
The magic resonant tea-chests however: 
Grandad’s Radiogram Brigade only 
I’ll continue to hard disagree. I’ve had so many speakers over the years, more than I can count, and I’ve rarely enjoyed the music as much as I ever did with my Harbeths. I 100% will own a pair again, or possibly a close relative (grahams, Stirling, Spendor etc)
Though, I’m itching to give some horn a try,
All hifi is a choice of preferred-colourations, we just prefer different ones 
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I think it’s maybe because I’m starting to believe that in general we prefer colouration as humans. We like vinyl, analogue, and fundamentally flawed things like valves.
Every time I hear a super linear, ultra braced, heavyweight speaker. All I hear it the engineering and the stiffness of the whole thing, I never feel like I’m hearing “music”.
Wilson’s are some of the worst offenders for their price. I’ve had a huge amount of exposure to a pair and in spite of their cost, every time I hear them I just think “meh, they’re not much fun”
I suspect I just enjoy a bit of flaw in my sound.
If might be an “uncanny valley” thing. The closest we get to perfect sound reproduction, the more it has that feel of being not quite right. Like CGI humans in movies. We are so well trained to know what a human looks like that we can spot when something isn’t “quite” right. I feel it might be the same in audio reproduction.
Whereas, If there’s lots of flaw. Perhaps a highly stylised cartoon character, or a very flawed replay system like a kitchen radio, our brain fills in all the gaps because it’s so far away from ideal.
Maybe the worst thing we can do, is get too close to perfect audio reproduction.
I could also be talking shite… it’s late
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I have built up 2 entirely different systems, with very diferent strengths, both of which I am entirely happy with.
The cartridge on the first system costs as much as the entire second system but I enjoy them equally.
Go figure.
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Stand next to a kettle drum when it’s struck, or a cathedral organ or in front of a full brass section or a grand piano in play and you rapidly sense hifi is a long way from ‘that’.
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There is probably much less fi in hifi than we dare to think. I have never felt the warm damp breeze I used to experience when listening to the Gordon Tetley Big Band at the Spotted House in Bradford. I have frequently experienced less than ideal imaging when attending classical concerts. (So which are the second violins?) Snare drum on my home system rarely makes me blink.
Still wouldn’t be without it though. A couple of days without spinning records makes me feel a bit lost and disconnected.
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If you’re accusing valves of being flawed then I can hear a whole lot of transistors (BJTs, to be fair - FETs aren’t so bad) growling “Hold my coat !”.
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For me this (and the points raised below) are why ASR is so ludicrous: a group of people grimly determined to believe that the enjoyment of music at-home can be confined to spreadsheets and Top Trumps stats.
For them of course - it is - and thats fine, but they have a fundamentalist zealot’s intolerance for all other approaches. ASR - Autism Spectrum Replay…
It’s all necessarily coloured - frankly it’s astounding how well a couple of vibrating paper cones in an undersized and imperfect acoustic space can sound like real musicians, but we must willingly suspend belief to enter into the full devilish pact…
For what incredibly little it’s worth I’m closer to the other end of the (acoustic) spectrum to yourself - I want as Real a sound as possible, within the constraints of budget and room.
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ASR has zero interest in how something sounds. Amir frequently slates a product in his reviews based on the measurements and openly says he didn’t listen to it.
ASR is nothing more than a bunch of fucktards circle jerking over graphs and measurements. They have an automatic hatred for anything ‘expensive’ and base their ranking on the totally pointless SINAD measurements
bunch of clueless cunts.
Some proper Wilson’s
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A new piece on ‘listening’ bars.
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I still haven’t made it to Spirtland, sadly. That is to say, I actually did hike over there one day, to be met by somewhat surprised staff who told me they weren’t open till much later. It felt nice in there though, and the system certainly looked very inviting. It’s nice to read that it’s becoming more prevalent as a concept.
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Be nice to have a list of all these bars/coffee shops around the uk.
Would love to visit them all
TBH a lot of the motivations from bar owners is to offer ‘theater’ and additional USP that seems to be driving things - These bars aren’t silent, there’s a lot of ambient and actual noise - it’s not a focused thing (not even like a concert) it’s an atmosphere generator, a conversation point and something ‘new’ / ‘extra’ of what people like to call ‘an experience’ these days. People tend to repeat pleasurable experiences and if you can shift more burgers / beer / coffee and charge a premium because their establishments can now pleasure an additional human sense they may do well.
That’s all good, and there’ s a genuine passion from the owners behind it too. The analogue audio industry needs more exposure, more people to have an experience that moves them if it’s going to survive. These public spaces (Most customers aren’t going to a hifi show / looking on forums / or visiting tired brick and mortar outlets) offer a platform that gets people talking / thinking / dreaming about sound and can spark much needed desire. The key is for the kit / installation to be perceived as cool, have a story and deliver.
The risk for audio is, like most fashions, they can so easily be a passing trend. I hope it raises customers expectations on what they want from a bar and they continue to respond favorably. (& perhaps try and replicate the’ joys’ at home)
If I were 20 years younger a listening coffee / pizza / bar is what I’d be doing right now.
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Just think how much money we’ve all wasted if we can nip out and hear a few decent tunes for the price of a coffee.
Do it
Happy to help out eating the pizzas 
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