Where the record plays to the end

A small, dark room off Soi Sukhumvit 36: two four-seat tables and a counter, closer to a friend's flat than a bar. The record goes on and it stays on until the run-out groove. Weekly album schedules are posted ahead of time, so you can come for a specific pressing and listen with people who came for the same thing. A handwritten card on the table asks for low voices. The owner-verified listing on ListenBars gives the speakers as JBL 4344, and a one-order-per-guest house rule. Programme leans alternative, indie, rock, experimental jazz, electronica and trip hop; it has run ticketed pre-release listening sessions with seated playback.

A jazz bar on Soi Sukhumvit 31 with vintage furniture, a long counter and dim gold light, a black piano and a drum kit at the back. Bands play Wednesday to Sunday. The floor above is the reason it is on this page: a listening room that plays records from Recoroom Vinyl & Vintage Audio, stocked with rare pressings across jazz, soul, funk, pop and classic rock, and pitched for quiet company or an hour alone. It is a collaboration between the owners of Sugar Ray and Ku Bar, and the cocktails carry both.

An Ekkamai room that mixes classic detail with a current look, run by friends who have collected records for more than two decades and opened the bar to get more people listening to vinyl. DJs work a record booth and talk to the tables nearest them: soul, hip-hop, R&B, funk. The drinks are the other half of the idea, cocktails built on traditional Thai herbs, botanical teas and old medicinal recipes, with natural wine alongside. Records are chosen to go with what is in the glass, which tells you the register: social, not silent.

Behind a red door on the same soi, from the same crew as Modern-Day Culture. The concept borrows from Salvador Dalí and stops short of theme-park. Crates span jazz, house and disco. The drinks are the talking point, wines and cocktails built from fermented ingredients: Time Out sums the night up as vinyl, vino and vinegar. Opened in 2026.

Hidden behind a large blue door on Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra Road, opened in 2026 by the team that ran Yayyyyy Record Bar. The name is the obi, the paper strip that wraps a Japanese pressing, and the shelves behind the dark wooden counter hold the pressings to match. Everything plays from vinyl. The person on the decks is not called a DJ but a Bar Viber, a host responsible for the drinks, the sound and the feel of the evening, adjusting tracks, lighting and level as the night turns from jazz to soul, city pop, funk, hip-hop and R&B. Built so you can listen, talk quietly, or come alone without feeling out of place.

Two floors inside Central: The Original Store, a Central Group heritage building by the river, interior by Kunichi Nomura's Tripster. Downstairs is the live room: six OJAS 12-inch coaxial speakers around a grand piano under a high glass ceiling. Upstairs is the Audiophile Bar, and it is the reason it is on this page: a pair of OJAS 816 speakers designed for the room by Devon Turnbull, an original Urei 1620 mixer, Technics 1210s with Goldring E3 cartridges, a McIntosh MC252 amplifier and more than a thousand albums, played free-form to the mood of the room. It is a social bar with no published silence rule; the system does the asking. Still active in 2026: Resident Advisor listed a Vinyl & Wine night in the Audiophile Bar in June.

The Rosewood's vinyl bar, styled on a 1970s home studio: warm brown tones, glass to the skyline, an intimate cigar lounge. The collection runs past 6,000 records, blues, jazz and classical at the core, and the hotel publishes a weekly shape: oldies on Thursday, jazz on Friday, pop on Saturday, guitar and saxophone sessions on Sunday. It is a hotel cocktail bar first, a listening room second, and the hotel says so: guests can browse and request records with the staff. Social, polished, and the only room here with a dress code.

Up on the third floor of Merchant's Gate Songwat, a vinyl bar that brings records, drinks and a strong sense of place together. From the street you may spot the DJ playing on the balcony above; from the balcony you watch Song Wat Road and the old town as the light softens. It opens at four, which makes it the afternoon room on this page, and it closes at eleven, which makes it the first stop of a Chinatown night rather than the last.

Known to regulars as Yai's Bar, one shophouse wide, in a 77-year-old building on the edge of Nang Loeng. More than 1,500 records on the shelves. Resident DJs bring their own collections; visiting selectors and collectors turn up with their latest finds, and the counter is where the conversation about them happens. Bring a favourite: the staff and DJs enjoy sharing music with the room and may put your choice on the turntable. The drinks follow Japanese kissaten highballs and a house gin that changes with the season. The founding team went on to open OBi Record Bar in Silom.

Included for the crawl, not the test. Clutch is the nightlife floor of The Warehouse, a multi-level complex of studios, vintage shops and workspaces in Talat Noi. On quiet nights it is a shared living room with a steady soundtrack and surprise midweek sets; on event nights the hangar opens up and it becomes a rave. ListenBars lists OJAS x NNNN horns and JBL 4350 monitors, unverified. If the Chinatown night wants to move rather than sit, this is where it moves to.

Up one flight inside Josh Hotel on Soi Ari 4, a warm, slightly mysterious room in dark tones. A large projector throws images across one wall while the racks around it hold the records. Rotating DJs set the direction most nights; the hotel's own page puts live jazz on Friday and Saturday with the Club Patongko DJ team. Food and cocktails from the hotel. Ari is a good neighbourhood to eat in first.

A converted old house off Soi Lat Phrao 41, wood throughout, a front garden for warm evenings. Records play in the evenings, mostly Thai and international easy listening, with occasional live sets. Time Out's line is that comfort matters more than spectacle here, and the bar is better for it. Seating is limited, especially at weekends: message the bar on Instagram or Line before a Friday or Saturday.

Across the river, six minutes from Fai Chai MRT. Born of the musical obsession of Tum Tokin Teekhanont, a familiar name in the music-video and independent-festival scenes: rare records, books and memorabilia from the owner's collection fill the room around a small bar, and it feels like a night at a friend's house. Browse vinyl between drinks. Occasional secret gigs by indie artists. A small group of music lovers treat it as a regular haunt. If Nong Khom the cat approaches your table, say hello.

A long way west, out past the ring road, and the kind of room this page exists for. A small listening bar built from an empty room in an old dormitory, designed for winding down at the end of the day: dark walls, wooden furniture, low light that leans hard into the 1970s. A different vinyl DJ takes over each night and works through the sleeves while you nurse a glass. A buy-and-sell corner lets you crate-dig between rounds; regulars come for the racks as much as the music. Craft beer is the strength, about ten rotating taps, with pours from roughly 130 to 150 baht.