Re-Tales

In these days of industry transformation, acquiring a brick-and-mortar hi-fi store is not for the faint of heart. That's just what 41-year-old Brandon Bartee did in August 2025. Bartee acquired Audio Concepts from Mark Ashworth, who was celebrating the store's 40th anniversary, all 40 years under his ownership. Ashworth has been consulting for the store since the acquisition and will continue to do so for another few more months.

Audio Concepts has been in the same location in North Dallas, near Preston Hollow, an affluent neighborhood about six miles north of downtown, for 37 of its 40 years. The store has four isolated demo rooms and a few other listening areas.

Bartee grew up with an audiophile father and became a music lover early. He developed a strong interest in recording and playing music, first as hobbies, then semiprofessionally. He moved to Dallas in 2017 to attend law school at Southern Methodist University. After graduating, he worked in corporate law. He quickly became a customer at Audio Concepts. His first purchase? A pair of Grado headphones. He still has them.

Last summer, Bartee was shopping for a hi-fi system for his office. On a whim, he asked Ashworth about plans for the dealership's future. They spent a few months getting to know each other. The rest is history in the making.

During a recent Zoom video call with Bartee, the most striking thing was his optimism about the hi-fi industry's future and opportunities for engaging customers—online, sure, but also and especially in real life.

"I generally am very optimistic about the future of hi-fi and music. More people are consuming more music than at any point in history, full stop. We know that."

On the other hand, there are no guarantees. "It's certainly a business, like any other. It will have its ups and downs. How do you engage people? That's everything."

Music is the starting point. Bartee has been hosting occasional Community Vinyl Night events. People are invited to bring an album and play a song. He intends to increase their frequency and make it a regular event. So far, Community Vinyl Night has been standing room only.

A Wilson Audio Specialties event in December, featuring Peter McGrath and Chronosonic XVX loudspeakers, drew close to 100 people. McGrath—a roving ambassador for Wilson and a former chief recording engineer for Harmonia Mundi US—flew in early from Miami for the system's setup and presented a piano concert that he'd recorded the night before. He played it as he dialed in the speakers. "That was his final check. 'Oh, that is what I heard just a few hours ago.' It was really cool to see that.

"Our average client that comes in the shop is not an audiophile," Bartee said. "They're not reading on forums or comparing this or that."

Say you get 10 people into a room with a well-set-up hi-fi system—nothing crazy, but respectable quality—to have an intentional listening experience. "I think of those 10 people, nine of them will just be blown away. You might have one person who just doesn't get it. But I truly think of that 10 people, eight or nine of them are going to go 'Wow!' How many will then say, 'Well, tell me more.'? Maybe four people. Then of those four, when you start talking about the realities of it or the cost, maybe you get down to two or three. But those two or three—they're going to be very passionate about it. Those are our core clients."

Bartee will keep key staffers on, including manager Landon Swindoll, who's been with the store for 13 years, and longtime salespeople Jorge-Anthony Polo and Jeff White. He plans to continue carrying the same brands—Wilson, Linn, McIntosh, dCS, Audio Research, Rega—with some additions including tube amplification from Japanese manufacturer Leben, paired perhaps with efficient DeVore Fidelity speakers. The focus will remain on two-channel systems, with some home theater.

Bartee aims to provide adequate choice without overwhelming customers and to remove obstacles to make the customer experience and transactions frictionless. To that end, he intends to continue the store's trade-in program. "We try to be as fair as possible and remove as much of the friction as possible in that, so that people can get into the gear they want."

Key to the experience is in-store demos, which means they must thoughtfully set up the store's listening spaces. Swapping out components on the fly lets clients hear how the changes affect the sound. They recommend appointments but have regular hours and welcome walk-ins.

The diverse demographics of people walking into his store has been interesting to Bartee. "By and large, what I would describe as younger people and a diverse group of people, men, women. It truly has been one of the most encouraging things about it. I studied the business and have done my due diligence, but it's really hard to know until you're here every day and you see who walks through the door. But I couldn't be more optimistic about the future of this.

"Most people come in here because they've been in a friend's house and heard a system, or they saw us post on Instagram." Even though they've been there for 40 years, "a lot of people just say, 'Wow, I had no idea this was here.' That's a problem for me to solve.

"It's kind of a 'pinch-me' situation to be able to wake up every day and do this," Bartee said during our interview. That's passion talking.