A large art student’s diptych hangs behind Alta Audio Adam speakers in Hi-Fi Life’s main room, where their modular equipment rack holds a pair of SOTA turntables, Modwright Instruments electronics, and LPs.
“We were building speakers when we were kids in the 70s because they didn’t make them loud enough,” says Brett Meinke, a partner in Hi-Fi Life, a home audio store that sells high fidelity audio equipment, custom modular equipment racks, and sound treatments that they make in-house. They’re located in an industrial park in Brookfield, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Sporting greying spiked hair and a beard, the fit, affable, and talkative Mienke is wearing glasses, a black Hi-Fi Life T-shirt, jeans, and black Birkenstock sandals. He built his own first loudspeakers in the 1980s. “I sized them so a twin bed would fit on top of them,” he says smiling. “It had eight horns and two large woofers.” However, many of his early efforts didn’t fare well.
“Amps were always catching on fire because their resistance was so low,” he continues, laughing. It wasn’t until an older brother, who earned a degree in electrical engineering, taught him about proper wiring and helped him build crossovers that things improved. That passion for music, loudspeakers, and hands-on craftsmanship only deepened over the years.
Another sibling played a pivotal role in shaping his career. “My brother was in art school, and I was supposed to be in art school,” Meinke says, adding that he had an art scholarship. However, there was a hiccup. “He graduated from college and was working at Pizza Hut. So, I never went.” The thought of being saddled with college debt and working menial jobs horrified him, so he turned to the craftsman skills he’d honed since childhood.
Now a tradesman for years, Meinke has been working in home building, renovation, and remodeling with his partner, Jon Ninmer, at Noble Builders LLC since 2023. Its main workspace is located in the warehouse behind their Hi-Fi Life showrooms. In June 2025, Meinke and Ninmer formed Hi-Fi Life with Eric Lee, an audio dealer who’s also partners in Alta Audio with its founder, Michael Levy, a designer and speaker builder with over 30 years experience. Hi-Fi Life’s primary mission is capturing new, younger listeners who have never experienced high fidelity audio, as well as serving the needs of existing audiophiles. The brands they sell include: Alta Audio speakers, Totem, SOTA Turntables, Pure Fidelity, Modwright Instruments, Audio Technica, Primare, Yamaha, Matrix Audio, Lumin, and Cambridge Audio. In addition, Ninmer renders CAD drawings for Hi-Fi Life equipment racks and sound treatments, as well as Alta Audio’s speakers.
Hi-Fi Life Listening Sessions
Meinke begins the official tour in their 14′ x 15′ demo room just inside the entry with the song, “Uneventful Days” from Beck’s LP, Hyperspace, spinning on an Audio Technica AT-LP3XBT turntable ($399). It plays over a tiny pair of Audio Tech Blu Tooth AT-SP3X speakers ($269/pair), which have surprising depth and bass for their size. Then, using the SOTA Escape turntable ($2,425) with the Audio Technica AT-VM745xML phono cartridge ($329), he plays the same cut on two progressively larger Alta monitors; the first is the smaller Geo II ($3,000/pair), and the second is the Alyssa stand-mount speaker ($5,500). Not surprisingly, their signatures deliver increasingly greater detail, depth, and soundstage.
Next, he takes me down a corridor, through a sliding barn door hiding a narrow storage space packed floor-to-ceiling with LPs, and past a thick, acoustically-treated door into their cavernous 15 1/2′ H x 22′ W x 15′ D main listening space.There’s a skylight to the left, three large, cylindrical Art Deco lamps hanging below an array of ceiling acoustic panels, and three colorful area rugs with square geometric patterns on the wooden flooring below. A black leather cube armchair sits between two couches at the rear wall.
Upfront, there’s a huge and riveting, colorful diptych (artwork made of two matching panels) of a man in silhouette, cigarettes, feet, and guns on the front wall. It was an art student’s senior project that was about to be tossed because at roughly 5′ x 5′ per panel, they didn’t fit in her car. Fortunately, Meinke rescued it, he says proudly, and now it hangs in their flagship listening room (Meinke’s wife, a principal at a charter high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, didn’t want the paintings in their home).
The paintings hang behind a pair of 41-inch tall Alta Audio Adam loudspeakers ($20,000/pair in black, Meinke says) flanking one of their prized creations, a Hi-Fi Life modular Baltic birch 60″ media rack ($8,500). Standing below one of their acoustic treatments, it holds the following: a SOTA Quasar turntable ($4,195) with the Audio Technica AT-VM760xSL phono cartridge ($599) on the left top, SOTA Onyx turntable with a belt drive ($30,000), an Origin Renown Live tonearm (roughly $37,000), and an Audio Technica ART1000X cartridge ($5,999) at right; below are the Modwright LS99 preamplifier ($6500), Modwright PH 9.0 phono stage preamplifier ($3,500), a pair of Modwright KWA 99 monoblock amplifiers ($9,000/pair), some LPs, and a Lumin network player. The media rack weighs 350 lbs. and is designed to improve the sound. It’s acoustically treated on the sides and bottom, and has a phenolic resin top to dampen vibrations. “It’s really heavy, but it shuts down the resonance,” he says. “It’s just acoustically great!” It’s available with different modules, vinyl storage options, and sizes ranging from $3,450 to $8,500.
I sink into their Front Row black leather cube chair (which they also sell), tuck my coffee tumbler into its built-in cupholder, and listen as Meinke plays Beck’s “Uneventful Days” on the SOTA Onyx. It sounds much better than in the front room, with a much broader and more refined soundstage, pristine highs, midrange blossom, and stunning lows. Room acoustics play a huge role in how a system sounds, Meinke points out. When a customer comes in to talk about getting speakers or equipment, he takes a more holistic approach; if someone has $50,000 to spend on a sound system, ideally, they should spend roughly $10,000 of it in room treatments.
Take their main listening room, for instance. It has a very tall ceiling that does wonders for the acoustics, but he asks, how many people can get that in their own living space? However, there are other factors at play like bass management. The front wall is foundational, he asserts, adding, “You want it to be dense and absorptive so it sets up a pressure differential in the room.” Activated carbon is excellent for that, but extremely expensive. Some audio companies offer that solution at premium prices, costing upwards of $45,000 or more for just one wall. Hi-Fi Life’s solution mimics activated carbon without the expense. It’s very heavy and had to be lifted up by several people in sections onto the front wall — which they covered with an anti-resonant layer, followed by drywall.
“We wanted a drywalled room to show that it could sound great,” Meinke says. “But, there also should be leakage in the middle and edges in the front wall, and the entire rear wall needs to leak to achieve the pressure differential in the room.” ” Towards that end, the sidewalls and the rear wall of this room are drywall over wooden studs and frames, sans their activated carbon mimicking treatment. “But you also need broad range absorption on the walls to control reflections,” he says, which is handled by their proprietary Hi-Fi Life acoustic panels.
We listen to a MoFi UltraDisc 45 RPM reissue of Carly Simon’s Anticipation album, which is dynamic, very forward and crisp, bringing out Simon’s clear and dynamic contralto, but it sounds a little more relaxed and natural here compared to my basement listening room (with its much lower ceiling), where it sounds slightly more focused and bright. A subsequent playing of Eva Cassidy’s Night Bird is sublime in its detail and presence, and after that, Bashin’: The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith on a Verve remaster by Acoustic Sounds sounds lush, stunning, and revealing of a big band with Jimmy’s Hammond B-3 organ that shrieks, bellows, and croons in its fat, percussive, and vibrant tones.
SOTA Turntable’s Christan Griego, at right, smiles for the camera with Brett Meinke in the HiFi-Life main listening room.
Soon, it’s lunchtime, and SOTA Turntable’s Christan Griego arrives in a black T-shirt, shorts, and blue running shoes with his friend, John, who’s wearing similar duds, and teaches trombone at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Urbana. After a brief discussion, it’s decided that we’re going out for sushi.
“I’ve known Christan through biking and music for years,” Meinke says. “But I didn’t know he bought SOTA Turntables.” He’s the longtime owner of Griego Mouthpieces, which manufactures mouthpieces and instrument parts for orchestral, commerical and jazz musicians. “Then, one day, he says, ‘Oh, yeah, I bought SOTA.'” (You can read more about Griego and his SOTA factory HERE.) Christan does the CNC work on the cabinet parts for Hi-Fi Live because he’s familiar with audio and acoustics and has the facilities at his factory. Moreover, CNC streamlines production. “You could hand make them, but then each piece would be a one-off, and cost more,” Meinke says, shrugging.
Griego drives us in his quad cab truck with large, rugged tires to an upscale Japanese restaurant where we nosh on multiple servings of sushi and sashimi. Sated, we head off. Outside in the parking lot, I almost get into the wrong truck, but catch myself.
“I was going to let you get into that truck,” Christan quips. We laugh. The mood is jovial as we clamber back into his truck to drive back to the store.
Back in the main listening room, Meinke cues up “Never Been a Reason” by Head East on the SOTA Quasar. It’s a rock classic that blared at dorm parties I frequented at Iowa State University circa 1980. It’s a surprisingly clean recording with good detail in the mix and a well-defined bass line. Meinke says that he prefers using the Quasar with the moving magnet cartridge for a lot of rock music, as a more revealing turntable like the SOTA $30,000 Onyx with a very detailed moving coil cartridge would reveal too many imperfections; he prefers the latter for jazz and other albums that are better recorded.
Larry Carlton’s live cover of “So What” from his Last Nite LP playing on the Onyx is a treat, with Abraham Laboriel’s serpentine bass line low and defined, the bright definition and attack of Carlton’s noodling on a Valley Arts Strat-style electric guitar compelling, and John Robinson’s drum kit clear and punchy.
Brett Meinke Iistens to music with a pair of his Hi-Fi Life acoustic treatment panels in the wall flanking a print of his brother who’s an artist.
Christan and John need to head out, so we shake hands and say our goodbyes. Afterwards, Brett Meinke says, “Have you heard of Lissie?” He unsheathes her album, platters and cues it up on the Onyx on her cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.” Martin Craft’s piano is rich and resonant, and the vocals by Lissie (Elisabeth Maurus) are husky, smooth, vulnerable, and contemplative. This stripped-down piano version of the song is haunting and hypnotic, detailed and rich.
Meinke tells me the first time he heard her was at the Pierce Hill Performing Arts Center in Veroqua, Wisconsin, which is northwest of Madison, Wisconsin. Two musicians wanted to build a school and performing center there, and after they arrived, locals told them that they need a proper barn. So, they hired Amish people to build it. There’s a minimal stage, with no acoustic treatments — just the wooden framing with a close to 30 foot ceiling. They host performances there in the summertime, where it’s “Bring Your Own Beer.” They also offer scholarships for students throughout the year.
Soon, it’s time for me to make the hour and a half drive back home to northeastern Illinois. We discuss some review possibilities, shake hands, and say goodbye.
Parting Thoughts
Weather in Wisconsin can be severe, with its sweltering summers and god-awful winters. Having worked with his hands all his life, Meinke admits that creating this business wasn’t all about the music. He’s turning 60 next year, hence, “the idea is within 10 years to not be working so hard,” he says. “I don’t want to be swinging a hammer if I don’t have to” in home construction and renovation at job sites, but rather assembling their equipment racks, sound treatments, and selling hi-fi equipment from the comfort of their store.
Hi-Fi Life
3725 N. 126th Street, Unit E
Brookfield, WI 53005
(262) 439-8000