A Niche Thing: Dive into the world of hi-fi and why this subculture is thriving, with Jude

A podcast with something for everyone, A Niche Thing with Aneesh Bhasin explores various subcultures from affordable art, coffee, sneakers to watches, vintage fashion, and the list goes on!

On the fourth episode of A Niche Thing, we explore the unique and intriguing world of vinyl with Jude De Souza , Founder of The Revolver Club , which sells vinyl, HiFi audio gear, does complete sound and home theatre installations and has played a very important role in growing the vinyl community.

Described by Aneesh as ‘pretty much a legend in the audio enthusiasts’ community’, Jude first got into vinyl as a teenager because he found it cool. “There were talks about how ‘Stairway to Heaven’, if played backward, was a satanic song. And 17-year-old Jude really had his brain blown. I devoted myself to finding the record, getting a turntable, and then trying to play it backward. And that's how it started. As for The Revolver Club, my focus behind starting it was just to let people know that music can sound a lot better.”

Aneesh too reminisces about listening to a song for the first time on a CD and noticing that apart from the vocals and the guitar, there was a whole orchestra playing in the back. “I spent hours listening to it. And I think for me, that's where the audio hobby really came about. What I loved about getting into this hobby was that music is always all around us. It's very easy to get into this hobby. And it's a very, very satisfying niche to explore.”

They discuss how the community of audiophiles that collect records has grown considerably over the last three to four years and how pricing is still an issue in India, making it a relatively expensive hobby to get into. They trace the history of audio starting from the advent of CDs and mp3 to the commoditization of headphones and speakers with ‘extra bass’ became a sort of a sign of a good audio system and how it took a while to get out of that mindset. Both Aneesh and Jude insist that there are lots of ways to enter this hobby without breaking the bank and that 2022 is the best year to get into it because so many things are affordable and accessible now, which has also opened up this industry to the evils of the resale market.

Jude also introduces us to ‘Record Store Day’, an event thrown by independent record stores once a year to help the stores that are going out of business due to increased digitalization, and tells us that The Revolver Club is the India partner for the same. He further supplies that old-school record collectors are still prevalent, especially in Europe, along with the fact that he seems to be selling a lot of Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift to his present audience, which comprises mostly Gen Z! Aneesh shares how he bought records of ‘Ram Lakhan’ and ‘Sholay’ from Jude which brings us to how important collecting records of old Bollywood and Hindustani Classical music albums are; they are now so rare that they’ve become cultural artifacts. You will also get a glimpse of the technical side of this niche with Jude explaining what a ‘pressing’ is.

More than anything it comes down to unwinding to good music after a long day and appreciating its audio quality for what it is. And it is this experience that The Revolver Club aims to bring to you. In addition to selling vinyl, turntables, and all kinds of stereo, it also features ‘Vinylheads’ - sharing their audio journey and fostering a community for all kinds of sound lovers.

So if you love music as much as we do, listen to this fascinating episode of A Niche Thing with Aneesh Bhasin and Jude De Souza of The Revolver Club on the IVM Podcasts network or wherever you get your podcasts from.