{"id":650715,"date":"2026-03-12T17:06:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/650715\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T17:06:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:06:23","slug":"been-to-shyboy-a-new-listening-lounge-theres-no-place-like-it-in-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/650715\/","title":{"rendered":"Been to Shyboy, a new listening lounge? \u2018There\u2019s no place like it in Dallas\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a basement on Main Street in downtown Dallas, Shyboy is thrumming with activity<\/a>. Some nights, there\u2019s a line 200 deep as music fans wait to see inside Dallas\u2019 hottest new bar for dancing and drinking<\/a>. Other nights, a few dozen people might sit quietly inside a velvet-padded room for an intimate vinyl session.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no place like it in Dallas, for sure,\u201d said Jonathan Merla, the brainchild behind Shyboy. <\/p>\n

He spent two years buying obscure vinyl from collectors all over the world. He modeled Shyboy after jazz kissas in Japan, which are music cafes known for their high-quality sound systems.<\/p>\n

Shyboy\u2019s tech setup<\/a> cost about $500,000, and two monolithic OJAS x NNNN speakers are the centerpiece of the pulsing room. They stand taller than the tallest person in the basement and create a \u201ctemple for sound,\u201d Merla said. Anyone can walk right up to them \u2014 if someone isn\u2019t in the way, dancing. <\/p>\n

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In another room, a turntable sits encased in glass, as if it were the most important piece in a living museum. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A smaller room inside Shyboy, the Blue Room, is deliberately different from the main room, encased in concrete. The Blue Room has floor-to-ceiling padding.<\/p>\n

Dan Padgett<\/p>\n

Lights and curved walls throughout make you feel like you\u2019re inside a lava lamp with great acoustics \u2014 like the fantastical fever dream of a group of art-obsessed music lovers. The Dallas Morning News called Shyboy one of the most exciting new bars<\/a> to open in Dallas this year because it\u2019s Dallas\u2019 first hi-fi, or high-fidelity, listening lounge. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed to be crazy and brave enough to do this,\u201d said Jeny Bania, chief marketing officer.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"Delilah,\"Shyboy<\/p>\n

Shyboy has some rare vinyl on display. The hi-fi listening lounge opened in downtown Dallas March 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

James Kung<\/p>\n

And who could pay for such a showpiece \u2014 a pricey playroom for audiophiles and their friends? Dallas oil billionaire Tim Headington had a short conversation with Merla, his vice president of marketing, which was the catalyst for a two-year deep dive into hi-fi culture. This \u201ccreative, engaging and expressive\u201c place aligned with Headington\u2019s mission as one of the most prolific supporters of downtown Dallas. Headington is the proprietor of the Joule hotel, financier of the public art piece The Eye, and owner of boutiques Forty Five Ten and Traffic LA and several restaurants.<\/p>\n

Shyboy resides underneath an apartment building Headington bought, the Drakestone. It\u2019s formerly the Davis Building, which Headington renovated in 2017 and received a Preservation Dallas award for in 2024.<\/p>\n

Down the dramatic flight of stairs, the basement walls are curved to help with sound quality. Don\u2019t get Merla started on how difficult that was: He spent weeks down here as each piece of gypsum was put in place. Now that Shyboy is open, he\u2019ll spend all night there listening to music, then return at 7 a.m. to recalibrate the sound system. <\/p>\n

\u2018Remove you from the distractions\u2019<\/p>\n

A former jazz musician, Merla spent more than a decade traveling the world, including to Japan. He believes the post-COVID music lover wants a \u201clistening-centered\u201d experience that is uncommon in Dallas. <\/p>\n

\"Jonathan<\/p>\n

Jonathan Merla is pictured inside the vault before Shyboy’s bar, velvet walls and sound system were installed in the downtown Dallas basement space.<\/p>\n

James Kung<\/p>\n

Listeners might hear Japanese jazz, Brazilian bossa nova and Detroit techno in the same evening. And also Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cBillie Jean.\u201d <\/p>\n

Merla hopes Shyboy will be so stimulating that bargoers put down their phones and just exist: dancing, drinking, listening. \u201cIt takes these types of environments to center you \u2014 to remove you from the distractions of the world,” he said. <\/p>\n

(But maybe pull out your phone to get a photo of the historic bank vault door \u2014 an art piece unto itself that weighs something like 4 tons.)<\/p>\n

Drinks here cost $13, and many are made quickly from a Japanese highball machine. The idea is that drinkers can grab a beverage and get back to the party. Merla doesn\u2019t seem to care if Shyboy\u2019s customers are as obsessed with sound quality as he is. He just thinks Dallas needs one of these.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now is the right time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shyboy is at 1313 Main St., Dallas. Open Wednesdays through Sundays, evenings only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a basement on Main Street in downtown Dallas, Shyboy is thrumming with activity. Some nights, there\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":650716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,52560,1596,14052,975,170657,9733,9063,988,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-650715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bars-and-cocktails","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-downtown-dallas","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-music-clubs","14":"tag-restaurant-news","15":"tag-restaurant-openings","16":"tag-restaurants","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116217301539063763","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}