We from time to time receive inquiries about Chinese HiFi speakers, including for some so-called ‘vintage replica’ speakers. Below is the typical information we provide to the inquirer – it might help you better prepared for buying large expensive speakers but only find it somewhat disappointing after the HUGE shipment is delivered:
“When a Chinese branded speaker is listed with the brand’s overseas distributor, we don’t sell it by a parallel channel to undermine the brand’s own dealers. We only arrange ‘factory direct’ orders with brands who wish for direct sales to North America, without compromising their existing dealers.
For buying Chinese speakers, a few things to keep in mind:
1) Cabinets could be subject to humidity damage. North American homes typically have much lower humidity especially in the colder climates.
2) Chinese speakers’ tuning are done by Chinese designers – they tend to overemphasize high frequency and deliver not enough bass to western listeners’ taste, and frequency balancing is not the same as by western designers. This is my personal impression – not sure a certain speaker is an exception.
3) Grant Fidelity had toured many many Chinese audio dealer stores and factories along with professional live event sound engineer, and high end audio designer. Honestly none of these western sound pros were overly impressed by Chinese speaker ‘tuning’. I personally think this is due to listening habits differences and music genre differences between cultures – a raving review of Chinese speakers by Chinese audiophiles is not of the same merit to a western listener. A western buyer should keep this in mind when shopping for Chinese speakers.”
Hope this helps your ChiFi adventure. These are entirely personal impression and listening is a very subjective matter. Please read this with a grain of salt :）
Rachel@ Grant Fidelity