Learning to Listen, in a Los Angeles Cafe Built for Vinyl The New York Times
LOS ANGELES — At 9:30 on a recent Monday morning, I parked on East Fourth Place in the downtown arts district, between Skid Row and the Los Angeles River. I walked into a kind of glass vestibule, then opened a door into the half-light of In Sheep’s Clothing, a listening bar. I was returning for a second visit, at an unpopular hour, because I hadn’t grasped its purpose at a popular one. Listening bars — cafes with high-end audio equipment, where patrons listen to vinyl records, carefully selected by a bartender, from a record library behind the bar — have been an institution in Japan since t…