One side of the shop makes the record. The other plays it.
Instruments, microphones, headphones, amplifiers, turntables and records. New, used and consigned, graded against a standard we publish, in a room you can come and sit in.
Make the record
Instruments, microphones, preamps, interfaces and monitors. The gear that exists to get a performance onto tape.
Listen to the record
Headphones, amplifiers, turntables, records and the room to hear them in. The gear that exists to get the performance back out.
That's usually the real question, and it deserves a name rather than an essay. These are the headphones I'd buy with my own money today, one for each job, each with a couple of alternatives.
Grado
Brooklyn, in the same building since 1953, still run by the family. Phono cartridges first and headphones after.
Meze Audio
Baia Mare, Romania. The headband, pads, cable and cups are all sold as parts, so a five year old pair is a repair rather than a write-off.
Grace Design
Colorado, building the same kind of thing the same way for thirty years. Preamplifiers, converters and monitor controllers, plus one headphone amplifier owners tend not to replace.
Grado
Brooklyn, in the same building since 1953, still run by the family. Phono cartridges first and headphones after.
Meze Audio
Baia Mare, Romania. The headband, pads, cable and cups are all sold as parts, so a five year old pair is a repair rather than a write-off.
Grace Design
Colorado, building the same kind of thing the same way for thirty years. Preamplifiers, converters and monitor controllers, plus one headphone amplifier owners tend not to replace.
Make the record
Play the record
Open and closed, from a first good pair to the ones people stop upgrading from.
Headphone amplifiers and DACs, the half of a system that decides how far a headphone can go.
Pads, cables, adaptors, stands and the small parts that keep a pair working.
How to choose headphones
Start here if you are not yet sure what you are shopping for.
The best open-back headphones
What open-back actually buys you, and who should not get one.
Choosing a headphone amplifier
How much amplifier a pair needs, and when the answer is none.
Choosing a DAC
What a DAC does, and the point at which a better one stops mattering.
Buying your first turntable
Where the money should go, and what can wait.
The best headphones around $500
Where the money goes at that price, and where it stops going anywhere.
Some of what you see is for sale
Each dot opens its listing. Come and play any of them, by appointment.
Previously experienced
Lightly Experienced is an 8 or better. Heavily Experienced runs 4 to 7, and it has been played. Experienced Beyond Repair is sold as is, and the listing says so in as many words.
Come and listen. An hour in the room is free, by appointment, on the third floor at 215 E. Lewis Street in Livingston. Bring the record you know best.