LMC celebrates 25 years of high-quality electronics.
By Newport Beach Magazine Staff
LMC Home Entertainment, one of the nation’s leading high-end audio/video showrooms, can be found in Scottsdale and Tempe, Arizona. LMC offers the highest quality electronics and loudspeakers from top manufacturers in North America and Europe and is often Dealer of the Year for brands such as Burmester, D’Agostino, Linn, McIntosh, Sonus faber and Wilson Audio, to name a few.
At LMC, the passion has always been to create the finest music and cinema systems, tailored to each individual client’s needs and desires. The company has dedicated music rooms showcasing the world’s finest audio systems, where clients can experience loudspeakers such as the Wilson Audio TuneTots starting at around $10,000 all the way up to the Wilson WAMM Master Chronosonic at $890,000 and virtually everything in between. LMC is the only dealer in the world displaying the Wilson Audio WAMM.
To celebrate a quarter century of serving local Arizona clients and discerning music lovers from all over the country, including Newport Beach, LMC invited clients and manufacturer representatives to the Scottsdale showroom on Sept. 27 to enjoy drinks and hors d’oeuvres prepared by Lil’ Leto Catering, and of course exceptional music.
Twenty-five years ago, Mike Ware co-founded LMC, building upon a lifelong passion for creating high-quality audio systems. When he served in the Navy, Mike began a small business running a private shop selling audio products. At an even younger age, he would tinker with old stereos and build kit speakers. After a handful of other jobs, upon returning stateside—including a stint as service director at a Mercedes-Benz dealership—Ware and his friends, Leslie and Mike McPheeters, began LMC Home Entertainment.
Along with a dedication to offering the premier audio brands for its customers, LMC provides manufacturers the space necessary to showcase their product lines. With more than 15,000 square feet of combined demonstration space between the showrooms, LMC showcases complete audio systems ranging from a few thousand dollars to well over seven figures, including the Wilson Audio WAMM speakers, dCS’ Varèse Music System and associated electronics currently featuring Dan D’Agostino’s flagship Relentless Amplifiers, the whole system approaching a $2 million value.
“Mass-market products, you couldn’t do this, you’d be out of business,” Ware says. “You would put this on display and, as soon as you got it hooked up, it’d be discontinued. There would be something else coming. But on the well-built, well-designed, high-end products that have long model life, you can put them on display.”
Clients can sit in a listening room at either LMC location and truly experience the audio system before purchasing. For Ware, this is a necessity—the cost of a true home audio video system can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and people should be able to experience what they are considering before they buy. Furthermore, LMC handles the installation of the system, considering the acoustics of the room to create the best possible sound experience.
LMC was recently awarded Wilson Audio’s No. 1 Dealer in the World for 2024. This prestigious accolade coincided with Wilson Audio’s 50th anniversary. The award came with a custom pair of WATT/Puppy speakers, featuring Wilson’s newly developed “Ethereal White” Premium Pearl WilsonGloss finish. To celebrate Wilson’s milestone anniversary, the award features gold-anodized hardware, matching Acoustic Diodes and screws, and a bespoke serial plate engraved “1 of 1.”
The German manufacturer Burmester has been featured at LMC for years. Burmester audio systems are also found in many luxury automobiles, including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Ferrari. In an automobile, the audio system can be designed to fit the driver because this person always sits in the same position. A home, however, is different. An expert needs to go in and evaluate the space to be able to design the best audio system. “LMC Home Entertainment is one of the best at that,” says Norm Steinke, the North American sales director for Burmester.
“LMC is one of the top dealers in the country,” Steinke says. “Customers come from all over the United States to LMC and they do installations all over.”
LMC offers a Trade Up Program where, if a customer wishes to trade in a pair of speakers they purchased within one year, they will receive 100% of the original purchase price toward a new pair of speakers, so long as the new speaker is double the cost of the original.
LMC has speakers from under $2,000.
“Let’s not brush that off. That’s still a fair amount of money,” Ware says. “With Sonus faber, we have made-in-Italy speakers from under $2,000 all the way up to the new $750,000 Sonus faber Suprema, which is one of the world’s finest cost-is-no-object loudspeaker systems. It is expensive, but so is a Ferrari. So is a Bugatti.”
The Suprema has only been seen by a handful of consumers, and LMC Home Entertainment is among the few showrooms worldwide that has it on display. Two large main towers are complemented with two powerful bass modules. With an elegant, handcrafted Italian design to go along with incredible performance, the Suprema system starts at $750,000.
“The problem normally when you build the product is that you have always a limit or a budget you need to follow. But the idea to build this is new technology, because if you don’t have any budget, every engineer can try to find the best solution,” says Roberto Gamba, international business development director for custom installation at Sonus faber, who came to the anniversary event from Italy.
Sonus faber has worked with LMC for over 20 years, Gamba says, noting its ability to install and set up a product as a main reason for the long-term partnership.
“We will continue to stay with them, and we will continue to support more than we support today, because it’s an important part of our business in the U.S.,” he adds.
LMC is putting the finishing touches on its latest showroom expansion, an all-new MBL room to display the unique MBL omnidirectional Radailstrahler loudspeakers and electronics handcrafted in Berlin.
