SINGAPORE / SHOPPING CULTURE / THE ADELPHI HI-FI HISTORY
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By The Memory desk · Historical reference · Sources checked 7 October 2026
The Adelphi, at 1 Coleman Street on the corner of North Bridge Road, is the mall Singapore’s audiophiles go to when they want to hear a pair of speakers before they pay for them. The building was completed in 1985 on the site of the Adelphi Hotel, one of colonial Singapore’s best-known hotels, which closed in June 1973. By the end of 2012, 26 of its 112 shops were specialist audio dealers, according to a count published by the audio magazine Stereo Times.
The Adelphi hi-fi history is therefore two stories on one corner. The older one is about a hotel that moved several times before settling at Coleman Street and lasted for more than a century. The newer one is about a 1980s strata complex whose upper floors slowly filled with listening rooms, amplifiers and turntables. This guide sets out what the records show for each, and says plainly where they are silent.
The Adelphi at a glance
| Address | 1 Coleman Street, Singapore 179803, at the junction with North Bridge Road, near City Hall MRT |
| Completed | 1985, according to the National Library; demolition of the old hotel began in 1979 and construction in 1980 |
| Previous use of the site | The Adelphi Hotel, which closed on 25 June 1973 |
| Developer | Not documented in the sources we checked |
| Building | A retail podium from basement to level 4, with offices on levels 5 to 10; 999-year leasehold |
| Known for | High-end hi-fi dealers and listening rooms, turntables and cables, and a handful of second-hand record shops |
| Today | A strata mall and office block with individually owned units; no collective sale reported as of October 2026 |
1850 to 1973: the Adelphi Hotel
The hotel’s beginnings are slightly blurred in the record. The National Library’s entry on the Adelphi Hotel traces it to an 1850 newspaper advertisement by its proprietor, C. Goymour, announcing a move to High Street. The Library’s separate entry on Coleman Street says the hotel was established in 1863 at Raffles Place. Both agree that it moved more than once before it found a permanent home.
For a time, the Library says, it occupied No. 3 Coleman Street, the former house of the architect George Drumgoole Coleman, which is the plot where Peninsula Shopping Centre now stands. It then settled, in the 1880s according to the Coleman Street entry, at Nos 1 and 2 Coleman Street, on the corner of North Bridge Road, where The Adelphi stands today. Around 1903 the firm of Sarkies, Johannes and Co. bought the property and rebuilt it as a first-class hotel with about 100 bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, and a dining hall that seated 400. The National Heritage Board names the buyers as the Armenians Arathoon Sarkies and Eleazar Johannes.
During the Japanese Occupation the hotel was renamed the Nanto Hotel. The National Library records that General Yamashita met some 400 community leaders there after the fall of Singapore in 1942. After the war it remained popular into the late 1960s. On 24 June 1973 it held a final dinner and dance, with the proceeds donated to the Singapore Cheshire Home, and it closed at midnight. The story of the neighbouring plot, from Coleman’s house to four hotels and a squatter settlement, is told in our history of Peninsula Shopping Centre next door.
1973 to 1985: from hotel to strata complex
Six years passed between the closure and the wrecking crews. According to the National Library, demolition of the old hotel began in 1979 and construction of the new building started in 1980. One National Heritage Board photograph caption dates the demolition to the mid-1980s instead; the Library’s fuller account, with its newspaper references, is the one we follow here.
The new Adelphi Complex was completed in 1985. The Library describes it as a ten-storey hotel, retail and office block; today it is marketed as a five-storey retail podium, from the basement to level 4, beneath six floors of offices. It kept the old hotel’s name, which is the main reason so many Singaporeans still connect the address with its past. The property is held on a 999-year lease, a tenure that behaves almost like freehold in practice; our explainer on freehold, 999-year and 99-year leases sets out the difference.
Like many city-centre malls of the period, The Adelphi was sold unit by unit to individual owners rather than kept by a single landlord. That strata structure matters for what happened next, because it let specialist traders buy or rent small spaces and fit them out as they wished.
How did The Adelphi become a hi-fi mall?
No public record we found gives a date for the first audio dealer’s arrival, or explains why the trade chose this building, and it is better to admit that than to invent a founding moment. What the sources show is the outcome. When Stereo Times surveyed the building on New Year’s Eve 2012, it counted 26 specialist audio dealers among 112 shops, roughly a quarter, and noted that they held the most visible units around the five-storey atrium.
Visiting writers in the years that followed named the dealers they found. A 2013 visitor writing on the audio blog Archimago’s Musings described rooms run by Audio Note Singapore, ONG-AV Specialists, Coherence Audio and Eighteen 77, with brands such as McIntosh, Focal, mbl and Bowers and Wilkins on demonstration. In February 2015 the audio magazine Enjoy the Music listed TriTone, Sound Decisions, Modular Audio, Coherence Audio, AVP Sound Vision and Clarity AV, as well as Dynaudio selling through its distributor, and noticed shops selling used Leica and Hasselblad cameras. The writer also observed that the mall was trying to rebrand itself towards lifestyle retail.
Why did the cluster form here? This is our reading rather than a documented fact. Expensive audio equipment is hard to judge from a specification sheet, so buyers want to sit in a quiet room and compare systems. That needs enclosed, sound-treated units rather than open shopfronts, and it rewards a building where several competing dealers can be visited in one afternoon. A strata mall with small, individually owned units allows exactly that kind of fit-out. The same logic built the guitar basement at Peninsula, a few doors away, and it echoes the wider story of Singapore’s electronics retail, from radio and camera shops to big-box chains.
Records, turntables and the second-hand trade
Vinyl gave the building a second, cheaper kind of customer. In 2016 Time Out described The Adelphi as a mall for standing speakers, turntables, DACs and phono pre-amps, and mentioned a clutch of second-hand record shops alongside the dealers. It also warned readers, with some humour, that audio cables here could cost a few thousand dollars.
Bandwagon’s 2020 guide to vinyl shopping listed three record shops in the building: Simply Music at #03-12, known for jazz and classical records and turntables; Memory Lane in the basement at #B1-17; and Vinylicious Records at #B1-41, which had moved in from Parklane Shopping Mall. A few doors along Coleman Street, at the Excelsior Shopping Centre, the same guide found several more. For the bigger picture of how Singapore bought its music, see our history of gramophone, CD and DVD shops.
Record shops and hi-fi dealers suit each other. A collector who buys a pressing downstairs may eventually want a better cartridge or amplifier upstairs, and a dealer demonstrating a turntable needs records to play. The tenant lists change, but the pairing appears in every published account we found from 2016 onwards.
The Adelphi today
As of October 2026, The Adelphi remains a strata building with units changing hands one at a time. In August 2026 EdgeProp reported a fourth-floor unit of about 2,131 sq ft being offered for S$6.38 million through an expression of interest. Unlike its near neighbour, the Excelsior Hotel and Shopping Centre, which was put up for collective sale in 2023, The Adelphi has not been reported as heading for an en bloc.
The mall is a short walk from City Hall MRT station, past St Andrew’s Cathedral. Opening hours vary from shop to shop, and a proper listening session may need to be booked, so call ahead if you are travelling for a particular system. Bring music you know well, ask whether a demonstration can be arranged on equipment similar to your own, and check whether a product carries the official distributor’s warranty; our guide to official warranties and parallel imports explains why it matters.
A timeline of The Adelphi
- 1850: Earliest record of the Adelphi Hotel, in an advertisement by its proprietor C. Goymour.
- 1863: The date the National Library’s Coleman Street entry gives for the hotel’s establishment, at Raffles Place.
- Around 1903: Sarkies, Johannes and Co. buy and rebuild the hotel at Nos 1 and 2 Coleman Street.
- 1942 to 1945: The hotel is renamed the Nanto Hotel during the Japanese Occupation.
- 24 to 25 June 1973: A final dinner and dance; the hotel closes at midnight.
- 1979 to 1980: Demolition begins, followed by construction of the new complex.
- 1985: The Adelphi Complex is completed.
- 2012: Stereo Times counts 26 audio dealers among 112 shops.
- 2020: Bandwagon lists three record shops in the building.
- 2026: Strata units continue to trade individually.
Questions people ask
Why is The Adelphi famous for hi-fi?
It houses one of Singapore’s densest clusters of specialist audio dealers, many with listening rooms. Stereo Times counted 26 audio shops out of 112 at the end of 2012.
When was The Adelphi built?
The complex was completed in 1985. Demolition of the old Adelphi Hotel began in 1979 and construction started in 1980, according to the National Library.
What was on the site of The Adelphi before the mall?
The Adelphi Hotel, rebuilt around 1903 by Sarkies, Johannes and Co. and renamed the Nanto Hotel during the Occupation. It closed on 25 June 1973.
Are there record shops at The Adelphi?
Yes. In 2020 Bandwagon listed Simply Music, Memory Lane and Vinylicious Records in the building. Tenants change, so check before you go.
Is The Adelphi going en bloc?
No collective sale had been reported as of October 2026, and units were still being sold individually. Its near neighbour, the Excelsior Hotel and Shopping Centre, was put up for collective sale in 2023.
Sources and further reading
- National Library Board, Infopedia: Adelphi Hotel
- National Library Board, Infopedia: Coleman Street
- National Heritage Board, Roots: The Adelphi Hotel (photograph and caption)
- Stereo Times: Singapore’s Adelphi building, high-end audio’s grand emporium (2013)
- Archimago’s Musings: A visit to the Adelphi (2013)
- Enjoy the Music: Audiophile on vacation in Singapore (2015)
- Time Out Singapore: The Adelphi (2016)
- Bandwagon: Guide to vinyl shopping in Singapore (2020)
- EdgeProp: Strata commercial unit at The Adelphi for sale at $6.38 mil (2026)
This is a historical reference, not a shop directory: dealers, units and opening hours change, so confirm with a shop before you travel. Read next: Peninsula Shopping Centre and its guitar shops · Sim Lim, Funan and Singapore’s IT malls · Back to The Memory
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