Dave Holmes, owner

I opened Audio Emporium in February of 1977.

My ethos has always been to sell the best gear at a given price- with a special focus on the law of diminishing returns.

I don’t care that a company offers fancy speakers or electronics (or now cables!) for $50-100k on up.

People that buy products like these don’t need my help.

They can buy “anything” and they’re sure to trade them in within a few years when they get a whiff of something they think might be better or more prestigious.

I can help you find conspicuously higher performing gear for reasonable money.

The truth is, there is fabulous gear for attainable money that performs within spitting distance of stratospherically priced alternatives. If you want to spend ten times more to maybe hear a couple of percent different (not better!) sound or a brand name with more cache- suit yourself.

There are two prime tenants to my philosophy.

1) My hi-fi doesn’t have to play at jet aircraft volume levels.

I listen to music in my house, not a baseball stadium.

I need my hi-fi to play loud enough to have fun- to give a reasonable facsimile of a live performance. But no, I’m not interested in sound pressure levels for which you pay a dramatic premium- and damage your hearing!

2) I don’t want to buy products built in China if I can possibly avoid it.

Chinese products are pumped out of massive production houses with intermittent consistency and spotty reliability. Employees often work a 996 (9am to 9pm, 6 days a week) schedule at virtually slave labor pay, while living in barracks. A given job house can make up to 100 brands. It’s like making golf shirts with different logos. The gear is itself is mundane. We can do a lot better for not much more money.

If you check out technical reviews of speakers made in China (Stereophile & British hi-fi news publish them) you’ll see great variances among the drivers. For example, it’s not uncommon to test a pair of speakers where one speaker’s tweeter is 3-5dB louder than the one in the other speaker. When you consider the potential disparity among all the drivers in a pair of speakers, you are usually listening to speakers that perform like eye glasses that are out of focus.

The year 2025 was onerous with DT’s tariff taxes and related insanity. I sold the Audio Emporium building at year end.

Then a new TAS magazine showed up in the mail with recommended products. The pricing of almost everything listed was insulting. For example, they listed a couple of speakers under $10k per pair and dozens above $100k. I was disgusted at how dramatically the playing field was tilted. I threw it in the trash.

But the magazine served a purpose. It reminded me that Audio Emporium’s niche is still important.

I’m now back open online and via the phone. I can sell you products where my vendors can ship directly to you. If you need in home support, I’m happy to report that you can still hire Jacques ([email protected])- THE MASTER!