Hi-Fi Hotels: The Audiophile Vacation Destination

My dad grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, so I visited the city many times as a kid, but my family never stayed anywhere like The Central Station Hotel. Built in a century-old train station, this hotel puts music and audio at the forefront of the hotel experience. The hotel features loudspeakers from the Memphis-based manufacturer EgglestonWorks throughout its public spaces and in each of the 123 guest rooms, where visitors are invited to listen to the hotel’s daily curated playlist. The lobby and the hotel bar are decked out with audio gear, and there’s even a high-end listening room where guests can experience music on a big and expensive audiophile system — perhaps for the first time. Is this concept of an audio-focused hotel the start of a new trend? I’ve known about the Central Station Hotel for some time, but I’ve recently come across another hotel that offers serious luxury with a big helping of audio on the side.

The hotel Il Sereno Lago Di Como on the shore of Italy’s ritzy Lake Como looks like the setting of a dream  vacation (though it would also make a great backdrop for a murder mystery à la Agatha Christie). This lakefront resort has all the amenities you’d expect from a 5-star hotel, including Michelin-starred cuisine, 24-hour room service, a spa, and a private beach. But one thing you might not expect is that the hotel’s most luxurious suite is built around the art of listening to music. Like the hotel’s other suites (it’s an all-suite property) the Darsena Listening Suite boasts refined Italian design and expensive furnishings. But it also features a high-end audio system with “heritage-grade analogue equipment,” according to the hotel’s website. That means horn speakers, tube amplification, a turntable, and a vintage reel-to-reel tape deck. A curated vinyl library of 500+ records covers a range of genres and eras, but guests can also request specific LPs to be added to the collection before their arrival. The suite reportedly invites guests to “slow down and immerse themselves in music” while enjoying their Italian vacation. Sounds good to me!

The Central Station Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee

The Central Station Hotel describes its bar/lounge as “the best-sounding music room in town.” Outside of a concert hall or recording studio, I can’t recall any public space that boasted about its sound quality. Of course, Memphis has a deep history in music, and the hotel’s bar is home to a massive Memphis-inspired vinyl record collection with an estimated 40,000 songs. The music is played via a custom-built EgglestonWorks speaker system. But behind the bar, things get even better for the audiophile visitor, or for any curious guest with an appreciation for music. There you’ll find the custom-designed Listening Room, which features a pair of EgglestonWorks Viginti loudspeakers (around $50K/pair). These speakers, which stand about 50 inches tall and weigh 255 pounds apiece, could well become a gateway drug into the world of high-end audio for unsuspecting guests. But how did this Hi-Fi Hotel come to exist in the first place?

EgglestonWorks President and Chief Designer Jim Thompson received a call out of the blue from the property developers who were planning to repurpose downtown Memphis’s old train station to create a hotel with Memphis music as a foundational theme. The Hilton-branded property needed to create buzz and add to the music-focused nightlife. The developers, whose audiophile sensibilities meant that they were familiar with EgglestonWorks and prioritized great sound, first needed help with the acoustics in the hotel’s bar. The 8 & Sand Bar was to occupy a space made mostly of concrete and glass, with 35-foot ceilings — not exactly the easiest setting for achieving good sound quality. Jim Thompson designed a custom speaker system using two 18-inch woofers paired with a midrange and tweeter combination that he uses in other speakers. Shelves packed with countless vinyl records provided some audio absorption, alongside more purpose-built acoustical treatment. “Visually, the speaker is very much a statement that this bar is a music-first establishment,” according to EgglestonWorks. 

To bring the sound into the seating areas away from the bar, Thompson engineered custom pendant speakers. Made from 6-inch composite stock and reinforced with carbon fiber, these 8 pendant speakers are suspended from above. The EgglestonWorks team even did testing to find the ideal height for the suspended speakers, so that music would be loud and clear enough to be heard and enjoyed, but not so loud that it would interfere with conversation. The bar and lobby speakers are powered by a dozen commercial-grade mono amplifiers, which have been running 24/7 since the hotel opened in 2019.

For those who want music to be more than a sonic backdrop for socializing, Thompson conceived of a truly unique idea for the hotel: a high-end Listening Lounge containing a real-deal audiophile system. Many guests never will have experienced anything like it. Playing various curated playlists highlighting Memphis artists, Memphis-based recordings, and other works with ties to the city, the Listening Lounge is anchored by a pair of EgglestonWorks Viginti speakers driven by Bryston electronics. These substantial speakers feature dual 10-inch carbon woofers, a 6-inch carbon dome midrange driver, and a Beryllium tweeter. The uniquely-shaped cabinets are meticulously built with a significant amount of aluminum and carbon fiber. Listeners can also select their own tunes via a tablet. The hotel lobby is home to a huge speaker sculpture designed and built by Thompson, who also created a DJ booth based on the framework of an old organ. And when it’s time for bed, hotel guests can enjoy the custom-designed guest room speakers mounted to the walls. While most architectural speakers try to remain invisible, these EgglestonWorks speakers are finished in bright colors and adorned with an ID panel that states, “Custom Designed for Central Station Hotel.

Il Sereno Lago Di Como, Italy

While Tennessee’s Central Station Hotel might invite some new audiophiles into the fold with its music-focused public spaces, the Darsena Listening Suite in the hotel Il Sereno Lago Di Como is designed for the well-heeled audiophile who wants to listen to music in the privacy of a 2,200-square-foot lakefront retreat. Designed to provide guests with “a sanctuary for sound,” the elegant listening suite is the most premium offering in the hotel, which opened in 2016 (though the listening suite was a later addition). A stay in the listening suite will set you back $6,300 per night (and up, depending on the season). The hotel’s founder, Luis Contreras, is a passionate audiophile. According to an article in Robb Report, the idea for the Darsena Listening Suite came about during a dinner in 2021, when Contreras fell in love with a friend’s vintage Revox B77 reel-to-reel tape deck. Already inspired by Tokyo’s jazz cafes, which offer an opportunity to listen to vinyl while enjoying a beverage, Contreras decided to create a space in his hotel where guests could unplug from the stress of regular life and immerse themselves in music while relaxing in style.

When I first heard that a high-end Italian hotel offered a suite with an audiophile system, I imagined electronics from Unison Research or Audia Flight, powering a pair of sculpted speakers from Opera, Sonus faber, or Franco Serblin. Italy has no shortage of high-end manufacturers, after all. But Contreras is a fan of old-school American muscle. The system is built around a pair of Klipsch La Scala II speakers, powered by a McIntosh MC275 amplifier and C22 Preamp. The analog front end includes a Thorens 1601 turntable with Sumiko Amethyst cartridge, and a restored Revox tape deck. The 500 LPs permanently housed in the suite are curated from Contreras’s own collection, with additional selections chosen by his son. Even the stylish interior design, by famed designer Patricia Urquiola, takes audio into account. For example, the side walls in the listening room are dressed in custom jacquard fabric, chosen in part for its  acoustical properties. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind the speakers may not be ideal for sound quality, but they afford priceless views of Lake Como. And of course, the hotel offers more than just a cool audio system. The Darsena Listening Suite has a private deck with direct lake access. The private beach and dock allow guests to come and go via one of the hotel’s boats, custom-built by Ernesto Riva. There’s also a full-service spa, a large sundeck, and even a 60-foot-long infinity pool suspended over the lake.

Hi-Fi Hotels: The Next Trend?

I think both of these hotels offer something special for the audio lover, but perhaps the most exciting part of this story is the possibility that providing high-end audio experiences might become a trend in luxury hotels, and that this might attract new music-lovers into the audiophile hobby. In researching this article, I learned that Atlantis The Royal, Dubai, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, just installed a massive L-Acoustics audio system in its lobby, suitable for everything from background music to “concert-quality live performances,” according to the installer, Creative Technology Middle East (CTME). Meanwhile, the W Ibiza hotel on Spain’s Santa Eulalia Beach recently hired sound consultant Mark Netto to outfit a variety of spaces, including the hotel’s lobby, night club, and amphitheater-style lounge, with high-performance audio gear from Italy’s K-ARRAY Audio Solutions. Would the presence of high-end audio entice you to spend your next vacation at a Hi-Fi Hotel? Share your thoughts in the related forum thread below.

More information:

Il Sereno Lago Di Como, Italy

Central Station Hotel, Memphis