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Some Things Are the Same All Over

We went to the "audio district" of GuangZhou—in China, all shops of similar character tend to group together, so the audio district is where all the hi-fi shops are. Actually, they're there twice: many store have display showrooms in the central mall and listening rooms ranked along a nearby alley.

EMG, or Elegant Music Garden, was probably the fanciest of the lot. It had an illuminated display floor and various bits of gear displayed like museum pieces all about the lobby. The listening rooms were up a grand staircase.

We were there in the middle of the afternoon and the…

Floobydust Is Also Universal

Down the street, we found a store running an active demo that had these strange devices flanking the loudspeakers. Seated on their own speaker stands, they had thin wires connecting on the positive inputs of both loudpseaker and super tweeter.

"What do they do?" I asked.

"They are soundfield enhancers."

"How do they work?"

"They are passive."

"If they are passive, why are they connected in line to the speaker inputs?"

A long explanation in Mandarin followed, which my translator declined to translate. I think it was, in essence, "Run along kid…

Sheng Ya Means Good Listening

Actually, I have no idea what Sheng Ya means, but at the Sheng Ya showroom, I felt right at home. There were audiophiles hanging out, listening, and, of course, yakking when we walked in. The sales guy was really into what he was doing and immediately began playing these interesting looking speakers made by Consonance.

Wow. I don't think I've ever heard saxophone reproduced better. Was it the horn loaded tweeter? No clue, but I could have camped on that sofa for hours.

A side note to American dealers: This store subtly used what appeared to be decorative embellishments (…

The Used Audio Market

All the way across town from the audio market is the area where used equipment and parts are sold. Many small shops are specialists, such as this transformer kiosk. Not only can you buy thousands of transformers, but you can pick up plates and wire and roll your own.

You can almost see the plates display all the way to the left.

Your ebay Article of the Day

Own the 12" acetate of The Velvet Underground with Nico for only $110,000. For that price I'd at least want an intact banana sticker.

111 Wussiest Songs of All Time

Some questionable calls here. "Daydream Believer?" Did Boyce and Hart ever write a wussy song? Also some good advice: "Waltz time is a direct, foolproof route to wussiness."

However, whichever young whippersnapper wrote this list has no clue how revolutionary "When I'm 64" sounded in the midst of the youthquake. Bah humbug.

Tubes Everywhere

Tube stores also predominate in the used audio market.

Wowsers

These were in my favorite store in the used audio market. One half of the floorspace was devoted to projectors, ranging from 8mm to big theatrical arc-lamp jobs; the other half to classic hi-fi, like this pair of RCA MI-12182As.

Something to Blog About

"This is something to blog about," I said from the floor.

The enormous and unwieldy Pioneer S-1EX loudspeaker was being polite about it. It may have been cutting into the flesh below my knee and pointing its shiny spikes in my face, but at least it wasn't groping me.

JA had called from his home in Brooklyn. "Stephen, I'll need you to come over. The speakers have rounded sides, so I can't even lift them out of their crates. If you help me get them into the house and up the stairs, I'll be able to measure them."

An hour or so later, I was in Brooklyn…

David Zheng

This is David Zheng of ETKG Co. Ltd. He manufactures the metal-work for most high-end Chinese brands, as well as many US, and European companies.

Thirteen years ago, he took out a loan to buy a CNC machine; now he has 120.

Oh yeah, EKTG also makes magnetic suspension platforms, flat-panel mounts, and just about anything else you can make out of metal.