Listening to music on your phone is great, but for hardcore audiophiles, there’s nothing quite like the experience of hearing a life-changing record on vintage speakers made with old school materials. “They just sound like music,” says Brian Rosetti. “Wooden boxes, versus composite boxes. Paper drivers versus polypropylene.” And then there are the aesthetics of old-school audio equipment.
“There’s a certain romanticism about it,” adds Brian Salazar. “The dark woods, the cloth coverings, the different shapes and designs, the kind of experimental nature of some of the designs from the 60s and 70s.” Rosetti and Salazar would know. They’re co-founders of Holt Hill Audio in Andover, which specializes in vintage restoration, audio design, equipment installation for residential and commercial settings, and product development and sourcing.
“We are a hi-fi audio shop, but not like one that you’ve ever seen before,” says Salazar. “The fundamental approach to how we do hi-fi audio and how we help people listen to music is through the restoration and rebuilding of vintage audio.” They’re also dealers for more than 30 brands of new audio equipment, ranging from speakers and hi-fi audio streamers to turntables. So what, exactly, is hi-fi? It’s short for high fidelity.
“Meaning that the signal that you’re hearing is as pure and as clean and unencumbered as possible, so that you really can get yourself immersed into the music as if you were at a live performance,” Salazar says. “And that’s what our clients are looking for. They’re looking for the opportunity to turn a song on and sort of get lost in it.” Salazar started tinkering with audio equipment as a hobby in his garage, until word spread that he worked on speakers.
“Even when things were at my house before it was a business, it went from a small folding table in a corner to filling an entire two-car garage with other people’s projects,” Salazar says. He and Rosetti met around this time, and the business was born. Soon, they outgrew the garage, and within a few years, they outgrew a small workshop in Lawrence, too. But they knew their business was special when strict COVID protocols didn’t dampen public enthusiasm when their first showroom opened in 2020 in Lawrence.
“There were 15 people standing outside waiting to get in. Masks and double masks and everything else, so we kind of knew we were onto something,” Rosetti says. They were onto something, and not only with Baby Boomers and other older demographics seeking to restore vintage sound equipment from the 60s, 70s, 80s, or even decades prior. Holt Hill Audio is also tapping into the zeitgeist of people across all age groups, including younger generations, who are rediscovering the old-fashioned listening experience and even decorating their homes with a midcentury modern flair. “They’re all into vinyl,” Rosetti says. “You see college dormitories filled with these little Bluetooth turntables, and kids are at record shops again. It’s a tremendous resurgence of all of this great stuff.”
Finally, in 2024, Holt Hill Audio moved to its current location in Andover, which houses both a workshop and a showroom. It’s a fitting location, not only because it’s in an old mill building, but also because of the region’s connection to the audio industry. “We have an incredible history here in New England of iconic brands that built an industry starting in Cambridge and extending all throughout New England,” Salazar says, like ADS in Wilmington and Snell Acoustics in Haverhill. Now, Holt Hill Audio is breathing new life into iconic pieces. “We’ve created an environment where it’s really fitting for the type of work that we do. In this old building, you’re seeing us work on these old pieces of equipment and really bringing them back to new or better than new specs,” Salazar says.
Holt Hill Audio is also a go-to source for new equipment and installations including home theaters, retail spaces, and restaurants, like Paul LaRosa’s Andover restaurants and a vintage system for the newly reopened tasting room at Chattermark Distillers in Charlestown. Whatever they’re working on, though, Holt Hill Audio keeps an eye—or rather, an ear—on that old-school, vintage experience of being transported by music. “We like to infuse a little bit of the old with the new, all the time, in everything that we do,” Salazar says.