Take That, Yankees - Local Record Bar Has Bottlehead 300Bs and Horns!

[prime minister]

Turns out the record bar nearest to me has 300Bs and horns!

Hi-fi Haunts: The Little Jerry – Toronto, Canada

Talk less and listen more is an unspoken code amongst patrons of Japanese listening bars and cafes known as kissaten or kissa. It is to these kissa which ‘listening bars’ opening around the globe in the last several years can trace their roots, including Toronto’s The Little Jerry, a kissa of a...

www.resistormag.com

 

[jblnut]

We need a trip report PM !

 

[prime minister]

We need a trip report PM !

I gotta drop by. It’s within walking distance, even staggering distance, of the homestead.

 

[jblnut]

lucky man you are :-) we still don't have a HiFI bar of that caliber anywhere in the Boston area that I am familiar with.

Which might be why we built our own JBL 4670-based system in @taylorplayer's basement :-)

 

[Redboy]

Damn, that one looks pretty legit!

I got a kick out of this...

“We started out with a pair of 1987 Klipschorn that we bought on Canuck Audio Mart (similar to eBay for used hi-fi gear) and built the rest of the system around them. It was definitely challenging/time consuming to find good quality used equipment for a good price, but we visited a lot of super kitted out hi-fi basements in the Greater Toronto Area and met some very interesting characters in our search.

"interesting characters" in basements. Audiophiles in a nutshell! 🤣

 

[prime minister]

Damn, that one looks pretty legit!

I got a kick out of this...


"interesting characters" in basements. Audiophiles in a nutshell! 🤣

No wonder they started a bar. Many drinks would be needed after visiting with so many audiophiles.

 

[Thermionics]

There's a hi-fi bar in Ballard (Seattle) that I need to swing by sometime: Shibuya Hi-Fi

However, I think my system is marginally better than what they have (at least turntable & speakers - their hi-fi room has an SL1200 Mk3 and Klipschorns, so not sure it is worth the trip and the cost.

 

[Andyman]

I was talking to @Wntrmute2 a few weeks back about a guy he'd was in contact with who wants to open a kissa here, perhaps in Ferndale. That might be a nice night out for a bunch of the locals here.

 

[billfort]

There's a hi-fi bar in Ballard (Seattle) that I need to swing by sometime: Shibuya Hi-Fi

However, I think my system is marginally better than what they have (at least turntable & speakers - their hi-fi room has an SL1200 Mk3 and Klipschorns, so not sure it is worth the trip and the cost.

Ok, so that's getting closer, but still a 12hr drive.

Maybe I need to just unload the boxes in the basement, break out the scotch collection and the records, and call it a 'bar'.

 

[Redboy]

Maybe I need to just unload the boxes in the basement, break out the scotch collection and the records, and call it a 'bar'.

-- see "interesting characters" post #5, above.

 

[Snade]

Impressive! (Darth Vader voice)

 

[Audionut]

There's a hi-fi bar in Ballard (Seattle) that I need to swing by sometime: Shibuya Hi-Fi

However, I think my system is marginally better than what they have (at least turntable & speakers - their hi-fi room has an SL1200 Mk3 and Klipschorns, so not sure it is worth the trip and the cost.

They have a luxman paired with the K-horns(?) I would have never put those two together…yeah, I think you got them beat. Now @prime minister post might be a little closer of a match; the best I’ve heard K-horns was with a 300b amp I sold a fellow. He had previously powered them with McIntosh solid state. Let’s just say that the guy was floored by the difference and could not stop smiling after each song played.

 

[Olson_jr]

Clicked on the link, the page opened slowly, and the first thing I read.



Hey, they are speaking to me.

 

[billfort]

I remember listening to some k-horns I was considering (trade ins) at a shop that specialized in very expensive, very powerful audio jewelry type systems - lots of driver arrays, milled aluminum and swinging blue meters. The sales guy fired up the k-horns which were powered by some monstrous Krell monoblocks that were on wheeled dollies and popped a CD into the Krell player, electronics in the sub-compact car price class.

Horrid sounding, and painful to listen to - you knew instantly why those speakers were still sitting there (at a good price). I asked the guy to plug in an old el84 amp from the bargain room and to please spin the records I had brought in, think they had a Rega table in there. Absolute jaw dropping night-and-day transformation; wrong speakers for those Krells or wrong amp for the k-horns, and that sparkling bright CD player didn't help either. Nobody seemed more surprised by this than the sales guy.

Synergy.

Almost bought those horns, but just didn't have the room or corners for them at the time. Now if I had a cosey little bar in need of a house system...

 

[JohnVF]

I was talking to @Wntrmute2 a few weeks back about a guy he'd was in contact with who wants to open a kissa here, perhaps in Ferndale. That might be a nice night out for a bunch of the locals here.

Ferndale would be a great place for one. I miss that place.

 

[JoeThePop]

Ferndale would be a great place for one. I miss that place.

I’d move there in a minute if my wife was
of the same mind.

 

[mhardy6647]

There's a Ferndale in Maryland (my home state), none too far from my ancestral home. It's... how to put this? Not a garden spot.
Bottlehead 300B amps! @prime minister's favourite(s)! 😎

 

[gortnipper]

There's a hi-fi bar in Ballard (Seattle) that I need to swing by sometime: Shibuya Hi-Fi

However, I think my system is marginally better than what they have (at least turntable & speakers - their hi-fi room has an SL1200 Mk3 and Klipschorns, so not sure it is worth the trip and the cost.

Wow, Ballard has gone way more hipster than when I left. The last bar I was at there was the Tractor... or maybe the Sloop.

 

[FalseMetal666]

Wow, Ballard has gone way more hipster than when I left. The last bar I was at there was the Tractor... or maybe the Sloop.

Ballard is posh now, but the Tractor and Sloop are still great.

 

[JohnVF]

Wow, Ballard has gone way more hipster than when I left. The last bar I was at there was the Tractor... or maybe the Sloop.

Y’all say hipster like it’s a bad thing and I look at that place dvd think it looks great. I mean, they have a Luxman integrated….