Best Sound Systems

• Stereo Exchange

  627 Broadway, near Bleecker St.; 212-505-1111

  It’s no surprise that James Gandolfini and Jennifer Connelly shop at Stereo Exchange. The cavernous lower-Broadway emporium sells all the swank audio and video gear a Hollywood A-lister demands—$25,000 Fujitsu 61-inch plasma TVs, $20,000 Meridian 800 DVD players, $25,000 McIntosh XRT30 speakers. What it doesn’t have is attitude. Sure, the staff can spout specs all day about the store’s 100-odd top-shelf brands, but they won’t push you to buy something you don’t need or can’t afford (you can pay as little as $300 for bookshelf speakers from B&W). Mostly, they ask questions: What kind of music do you listen to? How tall are your ceilings? What’s your budget? During what seems like a pleasant little chitchat about your music and decorating tastes, the sales guy has in fact built you a sweet custom system in his head. And if you don’t pull down seven figures per picture plus 5 percent on the back end? No worries. You’ll be treated exactly the same as if you did.

From the 2003 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine