[phillipwareham]

Hi,
 
I'm mostly here on head-fi just taking advice from people, but seeing as I live in Guangzhou (China), I thought I might create a little thread about audio stuff I find out here for anyone who may visit and does a search in advance. I'll post photos of the electronic/audio markets here and that kind of thing. Yesterday I went to check out an electronics market someone told me about in the hope of finding some Fiio products to try, but struck out. It was mostly component parts for hifi, but they had parts for other things, too. including chips of various sorts and the kind of rechargeable battery that's normally sealed inside portable devices in a dozen sizes. One guy was selling 40-50mm drivers for headphones. It's notable how the market here is very much geared towards a small market of premium hifi with big speakers, and the portable market is only mobile phones and ipods.
 
I'll hopefully be at a couple of better places for portable audio soon, and can post a little something about them.
 
Location: New Tao Street Electrical Market, five minutes walk from Gongyuanqian metro station in Guangzhou city centre.
AKA: 新陶街电器城。广州越秀区。公园前附近。
 

 

 

 

 
These are the headphone drivers

 

 

 

 
Various chips

 
There were several stores that specialised in ostensibly high quality cabling.

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

[phillipwareham]

Fiio stockist in Guangzhou
I thought I'd share what I got from Fiio customer service just now. I want to go visit the store and perhaps try/buy an X3. The Chinese address is in Gangding computer market in central Guangzhou, which is mostly laptops, but has at least one store stocking audio technica and the like. It's big enough that I was there recently and missed this place. The 'tmall' web address is a taobao store.

Phil
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Phillip Wareham ,

Thank you for your mail and support to FiiO!
 
There is the physical store selling FiiO X3 in Guangzhou, and here is the related information:
授权经销商(Authorized agent): 广州逸能电子科技有限公司 (广州智通）
地址(Address):  广州市天河区广州市天河区岗顶百脑汇2楼2a49-2a51，必胜客隔壁
电话(Tel): 020-38662944
Email:  pavchina@163.com
Web Site: yinengdq.tmall.com
Hope that helps.

BTW, our company is in Guangzhou, not in Dongguan.

If you have any other question, please feel free to contact us!
Have a nice day!

Best Regards,
FiiO Customer Service
 

 

[phillipwareham]

I visited the shop, and it was pretty impressive. It's small but has a lot of players, dacs, amps and headphones. one section of wall has about 20 pairs of headphones hanging there ready to try. these included beyerdynamic, shure, hifiman, audio technica and grado. some others like like hd650 were locked in a cabinet. i wasn't looking at IEMs, but they had several, including what i think were vsd1s. the players included Fiio x3 and x5, colorfly c3, dx50, hm700 (700rmb with cheap earphones or double that with hifiman ones) and a couple of others i don't know. there were about 10 different portable amps including the Fiio e11. i guess i should've taken photos, but i was short of time. the taobao store above is out of date. this is the new one: shop7811.taobao.com

 

[deltronzero]

Woah, thanks for the guide!  I actually live in Gangding (just across the computer mall) during the weekends and will definitely bring my DX90 to check out the headphone place.

 

[Jake Barnes]

Thanks for this thread. It gives all of us a chance to see how the other half live!!

 

[Sherwood]

The Taobao/Tmall method is absolutely the best way to find physical stock.  Most of those shops operate out of Shenzhen/Guangzhou, so if you find someone selling a product you're interested in, just follow through to their contact details.
 
I do the same here in Beijing to find shops selling decent equipment.

 

[phillipwareham]

Not sure why I didn't get notifications about those replies!
 
Deltron- you're welcome! PM me if you wanna hang out some time. I'm in the panyu Clifford, only an hour or so away.
Jake- you're welcome. I'll try to add pics of that shop when I next go back.
Sherwood- I think it's almost the only way. baidu is like car crash between a van full of adverts and another one full of random data. will only use it when I need to! incidentally, I figured out recently that taobao now has the most advanced parcel tracking system I've ever seen. shows you every move between sorting offices and what's going on, and even the final courier's name and phone number! amazes me.

 

[banshee2044]

hi guys do we have a seperate forum or blog for china？ if not we can create one.
if yes can u guys send me a link in reply.
 
im trying to buy my first real set of can so i tried taobao and JD.com but they obly have limited choice and price are bit expensive than 
i found in amazon.com eventhough they are made in China! 
 
I've set my eyes on m50x, but would love to explore other cans under 1200 RMB!
 
thanks in advace.

 

[deltronzero]

I've actually visited a couple of HiFi stores in Gangding (the main electronics shopping area in Guangzhou) and was able to find 2 pretty good ones.  One on the 2nd floor (I believe the one mentioned above) had a great listening area and I was able to try out some high end IEM's (SE846), some high end headphones (HD800) as well as a couple portable amps.  Then next door to the main electronic shopping area (bainaohui) is another shopping area with another pretty damn good audio shop on the second floor.  I was able to test out all the high end universal IEM's (SE846, K3003, Fitear TG 334 & Fitear Parterre).  They also had a ton of high end headphones, but I only demo'd their V-Moda XS since I'm looking for something portable.

 

[phillipwareham]

i think if you wanna buy in china it's either taobao or a physical store that is probably also on taobao. i haven't used jingdong much. i assume you're not in gz? my advice would be to get a recommendation for a good taobao store, or buy overseas, or get someone else to bring them over for you if you don't have travel plans

 

[iamikaruk]

Interesting thread. I am living in Guangzhou and I'll go there next time to see if I can get my HD540 repaired.