The generic term for music has been adopted as the name of a place in that gives deep aural pleasures. Sitting on the ground floor of the Fox Square Building on Connecticut Street, a few hundred meters off the Greenhills Shopping Center toward Edsa, is Sounds—a high-end audio showroom with a coffee shop in the daytime, which turns into a jazz bar at night.
“This is where Listening In Style moved,” JV Magsaysay said, referring to the audio store at the Shangri-La Plaza, and then introducing me to JR Picaoco, Listening In Style owner and now his partner at Sounds. Magsaysay recalled that he used to buy music stuff from Picaoco’s store, where he suggested that Picaoco add a coffee shop so customers could hang longer and talk. With the decision to close Listening in Style to open Sounds came the idea to add the jazz bar.
I’ve been to Sounds three times—first in the company of La Salle Green Hills buddies coming from our high school homecoming last Feb. 1, followed a week later where I watched a benefit for victims of the Taal Volcano eruptions, and recently to catch a gig by saxophonist Pete Canzon and Friends.
On all occasions, the audio quality of both the piped-in music and the live performances reverberated with such warmth and clarity that I thought the recorded music, which Magsaysay was playing from his phone’s Spotify, was something coming from a band that just performed its last song.
Worth P4 million
It’s the speakers, Magsaysay said during my first visit, pointing to the horn-shaped pair of loudspeakers in front of us, from the German brand Avantgarde Acoustic. “They’re worth P4 million,” he pointed out.
On my second visit, the speakers were gone. They’ve been sold, said Magsaysay. “But look,” he added, “there’s a new pair called Sonus Faber, an Italian brand.”
Beside the Sonus Faber were amplifiers and tube phono preamplifiers, including the American brand McIntosh, which was used at the historic Woodstock music festival in 1969.
All these stuff are what leads to an exhilarating audio experience, in which one hears a well-defined bass separately from the treble without distortions.
When the bands played, it was like having a private party at a friend’s den with a home theater system.
“We just want to have fun,” Magsaysay said. “We’ll see where this leads to.”
As for me, going there has given a higher meaning to the standard barkada invite, “Sounds tayo, pare.”
Sounds: Unit D, G/F Fox Square Building, 53 Connecticut St. San Juan