Riding the Common Wave

In the e-commerce era, brick-and-mortar dealerships must give customers compelling reasons to stop by. Los Angeles hi-fi dealership Common Wave's owner Wesley Katzir keeps customers coming through the door with a simple idea: that music matters in our everyday lives and that what he enjoys, other people will enjoy, too.

- JULIE MULLINS

That extends not just to music but also design, which is a particular preoccupation of Katzir and his business.

"I wanted to create a hi-fi space for people who were interested in the same sorts of musical and listening experiences as I am, which is much more communal," Katzir told me in a recent phone conversation. "We have enough screens in our face. I'm trying to get people away from that to a more meditative, peaceful experience with music." By hi-fi-hobby standards, Katzir is young.

He attended college in the 1990s, studying environmental design;' think of it as a kind of experiential architecture. He also worked at Circuit City. His after-school work was almost as much a part of his training as college was, because several of his colleagues had been laid off from Rogersound Labs, which had gone out of business in 1992.2 "I got this pretty rare tutelage," he said.

"Here I am 17, 18 years old. You have people who are 40, 50, 60 years old who have a wealth of knowledge. I was obsessed with hi-fi, and obviously they were too." He learned a lot about turntables, tube amplification, and other components that (seemingly) were on the way out then.

Katzir started his business in 2016, then opened the first Common Wave showroom in 2018. That first store was about the size of a largish house, around 2600ft².