Experience the ultimate in sound

Located in Minami Aoyama – one of the best areas for luxury brand shopping, lined with boutiques, import car dealers and the like – Aristocrat lies in a quiet spot not far from the Nezu Museum. It has an extensive range of items from vintage finds such as gramophones and Decca records to the latest in high end products. Items are specially selected by the owner who says, ‘I always thought that you are much better off buying audio equipment than you are buying a foreign car.’ Owing to this unique air, it feels very much like a member’s only salon.

Even in a shop like this, stocked with tonnes of custom models, Germany’s avant-garde acoustic Trio+Basshorn (a three way horn speaker and six woofers) and England’ Kef’s more than two-metre tall Muon set of speakers stand out as something special. Each of these systems, which include amps, players and cables, cost close to 90 million yen. While we enthusiastically attempted to make a witty comment all we could come up with was a ‘wow’ when ‘Tango: Zero Hour’ (which has been finally made into SACD format) kicked in at an awesome speed on the Muon. Both systems have a sound resolution akin to looking at a painting through a microscope. We could have gone one, but stopped because of time so that we could move on to listening to an orchestra on Trio+Basshorn.

It was almost as if Bill Evans’ singing ‘Waltz for Debby’ inside the Village Vanguard appeared before our eyes. The noise of the customers and the sound of the glasses produced a startlingly high sense of reality. Rather than feeling like being there, it was almost as if the interior had turned into a different dimension.

Aristocrat doesn’t only sell equipment – it also has great music collections, in particular analogue records, as well as a large amount of valuable records. We listened to a collection of stories accompanied by shamisen by Torazou Hirozawa on LP. The dense air that clung around the shamisen and the interlude that filled the room again transported us to another place. We listened to an SP record of Julie London on the gramophone, which had an overwhelming vividness.

However, the heavy breathing of several middle-aged men who were sitting with us was a bit off-putting; while the sound quality was the most impressive thing of the day, it could most certainly make some people go a little crazy with its incredible sensitivity.

If you are planning to visit, making a reservation in advance is recommended. A small concert hall seating 100 people is currently being constructed in the basement with plans for short classical concerts, which will allow visitors to compare listening to live music as opposed to a recording. Aristocrat is definitely a one of a kind store.

Aristocrat (Full details & map)