A few audio retailers have recently closed their doors due to pandemic-related hardship or retirement—Lyric Hi-Fi in NYC is a landmark case. So it’s refreshing to hear about a longstanding bricks-and-mortar dealership that has avoided that fate: House of Stereo in Jacksonville, Florida.
Jacksonville is unusually well-served for a city its population size. It is home to three audio dealerships, all started in the 1960s: House of Stereo, Hoyt Stereo, and Behrens. The three owners “grew old together,” Joe Parvey, the business’s new owner, told me in a telephone interview.
Bill Gibson founded House of Stereo in 1969 and ran it for almost 50 years. When, in 2018, he decided to retire, the store’s future was in doubt.
Parvey was a local kid who grew up visiting House of Stereo with his father, who is friends with Gibson. Parvey became interested in reproduced music: first home theater and then, when he hit his 30s, two-channel audio. He attended the Fox School at Temple University and studied international business and then established a career as a data center and operations specialist. By the time he left that industry, he was a “disaster recovery/cloud infrastructure architect.” Meanwhile, he started to dabble in audio servers—a different kind of data center, you might say, on a smaller scale. Around 2013, he began taking server prototypes to House of Stereo to test them with Gibson’s high-end systems. A couple of years later, he started up his own company: Wolf Audio Systems.
Denne historien er fra September 2021-utgaven av Stereophile.
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Denne historien er fra September 2021-utgaven av Stereophile.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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My last Far East trip
First comes the anticipation, that initial jet of warm water, that miraculous searching, finding the sweet spot, then heaven on earth as it cleans and caresses.
Riding the Common Wave
In the e-commerce era, brick-and-mortar dealerships must give customers compelling reasons to stop by. Los Angeles hi-fi dealership Common Wave's owner Wesley Katzir keeps customers coming through the door with a simple idea: that music matters in our everyday lives and that what he enjoys, other people will enjoy, too.
Mind Games to the bottom of the rabbit hole
After a wild decade in the biggest pop music group ever, John Lennon's post-Beatles years were spent in protest, in various kinds of therapy, in immigration court, and in search of a new musical identity.
Trane meets the Motor City
Detroit became a destination for migrating African Americans early, starting with the Underground Railroad; the city's proximity to Canada was convenient for those seeking to escape Southern slavery.
Vital art never rests
At this late date, it seems impossible that there could still be \"lost\" albums lingering in the vaults by musicians as important and successful as Johnny Cash and Paul McCartney.
DUKE IN 10
TO COMMEMORATE THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF DUKE'S DEATH, ROBERT BAIRD SELECTS A DOUBLE HANDFUL OF EXEMPLARY TRACKS FROM PERHAPS AMERICA'S GREATEST MUSICAL GENIUS.
Piega Coax Gen2 811
It's funny how we discover some music in unexpected, twisting ways.
Pass Laboratories XP-27
One of the pleasures of reviewing-and also using-products from Pass Laboratories is an encounter with Nelson Pass's writing, which can usually be found in the owner's manual and is always competent, insightful, and sometimes funny.
EMT 928 II
Modern turntables are a paradox.
Dynaudio Contour 30i
Ah, Denmark. Land of the Vikings and blue-eyed, blond-haired folk with faces sculpted just so.
