Listening bars are spreading, one record at a time

Guests at Shibuya HiFi, a listening bar in Seattle, leave their shoes at the door before settling into a back room to hear full albums start to finish. An evening might run from Bjork to David Bowie. The sessions, about 80 a month, regularly sell out at $20 a ticket, which buys people the chance to listen to records they could stream at home for free. One fan showed up with a Bowie tattoo and called it the closest thing she could get to a concert. These venues have spread across the U.S. in recent years, from Edina, Minnesota, to Kansas City. Devon Turnbull, an artist and engineer who builds handmade audio equipment, installed one inside Andrew Carnegie's former private library at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York. He calls it "HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3." He is already sketching No. 4. "I just love making this stuff," Turnbull said.