In these restaurants, loud music actually makes for better conversations

livemint.com:

ON A VISIT to Tokyo last spring, chef Sean Brock and his wife, Adi, had just found seats at the dimly lit, barely signposted Bar Track when the music stopped their conversation cold. It wasn’t the song (something by Cake) or the volume (modest), but the clarity and richness of the sound emanating from the speakers nestled among the albums and whiskey bottles behind the bar.

“It was three dimensional," Brock recalled. “I couldn’t think about anything else." Eventually, he asked about the gear the owners were using, “and by the time I was landing in Nashville I had already found the exact speakers and the exact amp." Barely 90 days later, his speakers—vintage Tannoys used in recording sessions with the country supergroup the Highwaymen—and an assortment of powerhouse McIntosh amplifiers were wowing customers at Bar Continental, Brock’s newly re-christened restaurant in the Grand Hyatt Nashville, along with a record collection thousands strong.

Bar Continental is among the more high-profile restaurants, bars and cafes in the U.S. that have recently put listening to music over high-fidelity sound systems at the top of the menu.

Most take inspiration from Japan’s jazz kissa (cafes), largely born in the postwar years, when new records and great-sounding gear on which to play them were both rare and expensive. Kissa proprietors would showcase record collections and the sorts of stereo systems devout home audiophiles might own, playing albums as patrons listened attentively while sipping drinks and nibbling snacks.

Those that remain are often cozy, cluttered and coated with “50 years of cigarette smoke on the walls and the ceiling," said Philip Arneill, a photographer from Belfast. Arneill has visited about 200 of what he