December 3 - China’s booming economy and rise as an exporting giant are having an increasingly important effect on the audio industry. The influence is two-fold. First, Chinese audio factories are turning out high-quality products in every category at prices that U.S. and European manufacturers can’t match.

Second, China’s growing middle and upper classes now have the means to buy quality hi-fi, not just from domestic manufacturers, but from those same U.S. and European companies with which the local factories compete. The bottom line is that China is producing—and consuming—an increasingly large share of the world’s hi-fi.

These trends were on vivid display at the GuangZhou AV Fair. I’m on a ten-day trip through China, starting with three days at the GuangZhou show followed by visits to hi-fi factories in GuangZhou, Shanghai, and Beijing.

In this first installment of my trip blog, I’ll give you a tour of the show’s highlights. After attending the opening ceremonies I got my first look at the hi-fi scene in China.

The country holds a number of hi-fi exhibitions, but the GuangZhou show is the largest, most prominent, and most prestigious. Consequently, virtually every manufacturer in China and every distributor of foreign-made gear converge on the magnificent Whit Swan hotel, home of the show since the event’s inception 14 years ago.

This year’s show hosted 150 exhibitors in 160 rooms, and was expected to attract more than 25,000 attendees, each of whom paid 50 RMB (about $7.75) to see and hear the latest gear.

Next: Raw Materials and Labor in China

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