With Speakers' Corner, we learn about the soundsystems and stories behind the world's best hi-fi spaces.

In the basement of a Roman trattoria in Bed-Stuy, Suono has emerged as one of New York’s most intimate hi-fi bars. Its sound is built on the handmade speakers of founder Danilo Braca’s late father, Marcello — the man who also founded Italy’s first hi-fi magazine. What began as a private lineage of audio craft now resonates as a shared Brooklyn experience.

Beneath Bar Camillo, a Roman trattoria in Bed-Stuy, lies one of New York’s most intimate hi-fi bars. Suono isn’t a nightclub and it isn’t a hushed, reverent listening room; it’s a warm, vinyl-led space where music and conversation comfortably coexist.

The basement wasn’t always designed for sound. When Bar Camillo opened in 2020, the room was used for private dinners and the occasional DJ set. During the pandemic, it served as storage, and briefly and intriguingly, as a gelato laboratory. By 2024, the owners decided to bring music back, inviting DJ and sound engineer Danilo Braca to play one of the first parties.

“The sound was just terrible,” Braca recalls bluntly. “They had four small commercial JBL speakers in each corner, with hard cement floors, brick walls and a wood panelled ceiling. Sound was bouncing all over the place.”

Rather than walk away, Braca spotted an opportunity. He suggested that with proper investment and time the space could work. “I suddenly remembered having brought my dad’s speakers over to NYC after his passing around 8 years ago,” he says. “In that moment, I realised why I had done it. All of it came together spontaneously and with love. We then spent the next few months building out the space into what it is today.”

At the core of Suono is a system that blends vintage engineering and a family legacy. Two Technics SL-1200MK2s anchor the DJ setup, with selectors encouraged to bring their own cartridges (Braca’s favourite being the Stanton 680HP MP). For the mixer, he chose an Ecler Warm Duo from Barcelona: “It’s a small-sized mixer that fit our needs, as I didn’t want to put the turntables in battle mode to save space for a bigger mixer. Ecler has been making analogue gear in Spain for over 50 years and mixers for over 40 years. I have owned a few from them in the last 25 years, and I really like the layout and sound.”

Amplification is split across two systems. The mains are powered by custom monoblock tube amps (20 watts each, using classic tubes like the 12AX7 and EL84) with a Galactron MK101 solid-state unit as backup. The bar runs on vintage Galactron MK10Bs from 1972, part of the same lineage Braca’s father helped build.

The speakers themselves form Suono’s centrepiece. The mains are custom vintage cabinets built by Braca’s father, based on the Jensen Imperial model. They contain a Jensen RP-302 super tweeter, RP-41 mid-range horn, and Flexair C12NF woofer, all wired through a Jensen crossover. Above the bar sits a second handmade pair, while the booth holds Philips 22 RH 541 monitors from 1976 — the first speakers Braca ever used as a DJ in the ’80s. Even the subs and backup monitors are vintage coaxial designs from RCA and others.

“All the drivers are from my dad,” Braca notes.

The basement itself also needed work. With hard surfaces and low ceilings, it required careful tuning. Braca collaborated with DJ and woodworker Colin Miller, who built walnut diffuser panels and bass traps to match the bar’s design. “It was challenging because of the small dimensions of the bar,” Braca explains. “So many reflective points. But with a perfect amount of absorbing/diffuser panels and bass traps, I was able to reach a sound frequency response that I tune (still every couple of weeks) with a high-quality DSP.”

The name Suono connects the bar directly to Braca’s family. His father, Marcello, founded Suono magazine in Italy — the country’s first hi-fi publication. “When we were thinking of a name for the space, it suddenly came to me that this was the only name,” Braca says. “Suono was the name of the magazine that my dad founded, the first ever HiFi publication in Italy, and this room was filled with equipment that he had built. It just had to be Suono.”

The whole connection came full circle when, earlier this year, Suono magazine itself ran a feature on the Brooklyn bar, playfully titled “I am a magazine in New York.”

Braca stresses that Suono isn’t a purist listening bar, nor is it a typical nightclub. “Music oriented for sure,” he says. “But the room is treated so that conversations can happen as well. Yes. Conversation. It’s not too loud that you need earplugs. It’s not a listening bar, it’s a HiFi bar.”

Each night is all-vinyl, often curated by local collectors with genre-based residencies: Latin, Japanese, Brazilian, African, Italian, hip-hop, or eclectic blends. “They come to socialise, to be with friends, talk, laugh, and also to hear great music selected only on vinyl by great local collectors,” Braca says.

In Suono, hi-fi isn’t just polished gear bought at high prices with no context. It’s living history where walnut panels and vintage horns carry Marcello’s legacy into a space of communal remembrance, joy and music – all in a little basement in Brooklyn.

Suono is located beneath Bar Camillo, 333 Tompkins Avenue, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Open Friday & Saturday, 9pm–1am. Find Masahiro Takai here.

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