Has anyone been to one of these Hi-Fi listening restaurants?

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You could not have found a better tittle for the rest of that bit of most miserable sounding ignorance :D
For some of our cultures internationally, food and entertainment go hand in hand. Its joyful and highly recommended, give it a try man ;)

You missed my point.

Most restaurants have some kind of BACKGROUND music... something smooth and mellow that masks the sounds of other people's conversations.

Going out to dinner is a social experience. That's why going out to lunch/dinner by yourself when on a business trip is such a turn off. I seldom go out to restaurants by myself, I might as well stay at home or the hotel room and eat while I watch TV.

But when with dinner with family and/or friends, we talk, it's social, we don't listen to music.

OTOH... when we go out to music, say the symphony, we do NOT talk to each other, we listen. And at home, when we listen to music, we don't talk to each other much. Even at movies, we don't talk to each other, we might just share the popcorn.
 
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There's a place in Portland (OR, USA) that is a bar (with some bar food) and audio listening place. They tend toward big horn speakers, tube amplifiers, and vinyl. Lots of lounging type seating. Decent acoustics, nice high ceiling. The local audio club, PAC, also holds most of its meetings there now.
https://www.decibel-pdx.com/
1713548141168.png
 
It's interesting to me that these would be popular, because listening quietly and eating/socializing isn't common in my experience. Same is true for restaurants/bars that feature live music. People are noisy to the point of being rude to the musicians in many cases.

When we have guests at our home, none of them are interested in listening to the music - despite a living room literally festooned with audio gear and a huge variety of musical content. We no longer have friends who are interested in high-quality sound reproduction, which is really strange, because growing up, so many of my friends were into just hanging out and listening to good stuff.

One of the exceptions I found years ago was the famous Baked Potato in my childhood town of Studio City, CA. They serve, of course, baked potatoes stuffed with various things, but when the musicians start playing, the audience was quiet. Not something I've seen with recorded music at a bar/restaurant.

I suppose if the recorded music is really high quality and what customers want to hear, it would be a novel experience. It would actually be nice if these types of venues succeed and become more common.
 
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There is a Jazz Kissa-style establishment in Denver, it’s absolutely fantastic, and a great experience.

Highly recommended.

https://esphifi.co/

Well, it looks nice. Real nice chair in there... but the components were chosen primarily for their looks, not their sound.

The Klipschorn is on the corner (notice they only show one!) and then there's another horn by the bar... poor bartender.

There's an amp on a shelf above the speaker, and I didn't see any isolating feet, so those tubes are gonna vibrate.... not a good thing to do.

The tables are nice, idlers? Very old fashion, but I dare say a Linn or even one of them techno-fangled direct drive Technics will sound FAR better... but the SL will look out of the place and the Linn will likely be too fragile and bounce all over the place.

Yes, the place looks very nice, but I dare say that an Android Tablet, a $700 DAC with a USB-OTG cable, a pair of nice class A amps, or a tube amp, and a matched set of horns at all four corners will sound better.

But sounding better is likely not what they want, they want a place that sounds good enough, looks very cool in a Front Range kind of way and gets people to kick back and spend money on drinks.

In '82 I saw Red Knuckles And The Trailblazers in Boulder. They served beer at the theater, right to your seat. That's my kind of place to listen and drink. Always late with your kisses....
 
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It's interesting to me that these would be popular, because listening quietly and eating/socializing isn't common in my experience. Same is true for restaurants/bars that feature live music. People are noisy to the point of being rude to the musicians in many cases.

When we have guests at our home, none of them are interested in listening to the music - despite a living room literally festooned with audio gear and a huge variety of musical content. We no longer have friends who are interested in high-quality sound reproduction, which is really strange, because growing up, so many of my friends were into just hanging out and listening to good stuff.

One of the exceptions I found years ago was the famous Baked Potato in my childhood town of Studio City, CA. They serve, of course, baked potatoes stuffed with various things, but when the musicians start playing, the audience was quiet. Not something I've seen with recorded music at a bar/restaurant.

I suppose if the recorded music is really high quality and what customers want to hear, it would be a novel experience. It would actually be nice if these types of venues succeed and become more common.

When we grew up, there weren't so many distractions, so having a good stereo system, at home, dorm... was a big thing.

And then, ahem, we used glass appliances to achieve alternate states of consciousness that extricated our common day reality to a realm where we listened to music most carefully and enjoyed it. No need for remotes, listen to one side at a a time, then a round of refilling the vegetable glass receptacle, grabbing another round of cheap beers, and lowering the stylus on the other side -after using the Discwasher to make sure it wall nice and clean.

SIDE NOTE: CDs with their d@@mn remotes and awful sound were the beginning of the End... Michael Jackson just made it worse.

Kids today don't have books, don't have attention spans that last beyond 128 chars or a single page with 6 bulletpoints.. they walk around with "audio pods" -don't call them IEMs- in their ears, listening to crapola with a dynamic range of 0.5 db... at best. Most of them have never heard a sound system... never mind the ones we have...

Can you imagine those kids sitting for a 25 minute symphony? Will they remember NOT to clap between movements? ( one of my pet peeves ).

Listened to live recordings of pop, rock? Why do people in the fricking audience have to yell "All right! "... " Wow"... like who gives a Damn... like Zappa said, "Shut up and play yer guitar".. or as Jim Morrison said "Shut up and give the singer a chance".. I think of it as the Social Media generation that has no constrains, and is narcissistic in such matters.

Check out the picture of that bar in Oregon... that old guy with slippers sitting orthogonal to the speakers. And those multi horns... That's a PA speaker... how smug, the look of people who think they are better than others because they are cooler that others.

.. A baked potato restaurant... how 70s... Hey man, can you put some of that Maui Wowie topping on my Mr. Potato... and put some Sinsemilla Brilla for my wife's Mrs. Potato... oh, pass that Tecate too, thanks dude...
 
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There's a place in Portland (OR, USA) that is a bar (with some bar food) and audio listening place. They tend toward big horn speakers, tube amplifiers, and vinyl. Lots of lounging type seating. Decent acoustics, nice high ceiling. The local audio club, PAC, also holds most of its meetings there now.
https://www.decibel-pdx.com/
View attachment 1300883

Why does that picture remind me of Mork and Mindy?
 
For us, a mix of live and Dj plus dancing is pretty common served with dinner at events. Music appreciation is usually difficult due to the PA type systems, but the two that I listed were at venues where the tables skirt the dance floor and the promotors were really into high quality sounds

But what I don't understand about the negative stance........... why can't we eat at a quiet place tonight and talk about you and I and tomorrow visit that place with music and maybe even try karaoke? Good quality music and systems aren't just about flavours of rock and classic

Where I live, Friday and Saturday nights are best spent eating at home. The better night food is in the pubs but at that time some small rock band would also be on and be using budget PA. Would be nice to have a place with good music and food here
 
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For us, a mix of live and Dj plus dancing is pretty common served with dinner at events. Music appreciation is usually difficult due to the PA type systems, but the two that I listed were at venues where the tables skirt the dance floor and the promotors were really into high quality sounds

But what I don't understand about the negative stance........... why can't we eat at a quiet place tonight and talk about you and I and tomorrow visit that place with music and maybe even try karaoke? Good quality music and systems aren't just about flavours of rock and classic

Where I live, Friday and Saturday nights are best spent eating at home. The better night food is in the pubs but at that time some small rock band would also be on and be using budget PA. Would be nice to have a place with good music and food here

It's very different.... I've been to several Karaoke places, Japanese-American. During the day and afternoon it's a restaurant, usually an All-You-Can-Eat buffet. The Karaoke starts in the late evening... and the restaurants are large enough.

The whole point of karaoke is not the food, it's drinking beer and making a fool of your self, in a good way, trying to do Elvis.

Also, bars with bands are a standard fare... that's what "bar food" is about. Many large restaurants will have a "bar section" with bar food. Indeed, that's usually the easiest place to eat since hopefully there's no reservation required... and the whole place is set up to be noisy, crowded and loud. Which is fine when you're eating "bar food" in a bar... that's fine.

A "restaurant" however is different. We expect the food to be very important, the place to be subdued and driven towards small social groups at each table.

There is nothing negative... somehow you treat "bar" and "restaurant" as if they are the same... maybe in your Oz, but not in my part of the World.

The point is that bars are loud, restaurants are quiet.
 
I'd like to visit one of those quiet restaurants. I guess maybe I'm just not spending enough money, because the ones I go to I wouldn't call quiet. While I don't typically have to shout to be heard there is plenty of sound and rarely pleasant. Many around here have the bar right at the side of the dining area so you get a lot of noise from there too.

.. The better night food is in the pubs but at that time some small rock band would also be on and be using budget PA. Would be nice to have a place with good music and food here
I have left a lot of events/places once they started playing through a bad sounding setup.
And I'm finding more dining places are cranking up their poor sounding systems already. "Yeah, I know what type of restaurant I picked, I don't need the music from there blaring the entire time". And "Great story people 2 tables over but no need to shout the next one".
There was a burger place we used to frequent and they'd play the music fairly loud but they had a decent system so it was still nice. Good quality, dynamic music seems easier to talk over.

The concept sounds interesting and while I understand many have limitations in just how good the music can be, I don't see anything bad from having it as a choice. Who knows, maybe we will meet someone on here asking about refurbishing an amp they bought because of listening to music at one of these places.
 
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You know, you GUYS KNOW NOTHING ABOUT A LOUD RESTAURANT

Go to a Mexican place, sit down to a nice dinner... say on Friday or Saturday... late afternoon.

Then the MARIACHI BAND shows up.

You don't know what loud is until the Marichis set themselves up 12 feet from your table and let it rip.

:cuss::snare:
Ay Caramba!

Knowing this, one time we went and sat down at the far wall, about 60 feet from them.... heck, as I was enjoying my deep fried catfish the band started and my wife swears I jumped like a foot off the chair.

WTH?

Needless to say, we no longer go to any restaurant that features a Mariachi Band, not during dinner.

OTOH, it makes the Camarones en Salsa del Diablo go down easier.
 
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If I had a dinner date and my partner(s) paid more attention to the stereo than to what I was saying, I'd just go home.
Really?
I find that statement most extraordinary.
For one, it exudes low self esteem or too much self centering to me.
You also ignore both partners may be enjoying it. Big time.

As a side note, that does not explain the million Live Show Restaurants around the World.
Hey, fwiw I live in Caminito, the tourist focused Tango street in Buenos Aires.

In my very block there's 5 or 6 such live show Restaurants, where couples watch tango dancers, listen to Orchestras and singers, etc. while dining
IMG_20240420_002640.jpg

You say all those couples are heading straight to Divorce Court? 😲

In fact, all Restaurants must incorporate such acts simply because they double or triple amount of assistants.
Where attention "pulling" is way stronger than listening to a couple Jazz records or whatever.
 
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