[maricius]

Introduction (feel free to skip):

For nearly a decade, my family has been frequenting Xiamen (厦门) which is the largest city in the Fujian province in South Eastern China for vacations as my grandfather was born near the area prior to migrating to the Philippines.

I actually got into Hi-Fi and specifically IEMs and headphones because of those vacations. From purchasing the Pioneer SE-CLX60 in a random tourist gift shop to go with my iPod Nano back in 2010/2011 as a 13 year old and falling in love with music to 2012 where I buy TWO pairs of Beats Solo HDs in Coodoo, a retailer of Apple products that was huge before the rise of Huawei and XiaoMi, and my subsequent disappointment and questioning about their quality which led me to Head-Fi, Xiamen holds an extremely sentimental value to me as an audiophile.

This year the right channel of my Flare Audio R2Pro died but I only began to seek a replacement after demo-ing the Sony IER-M7. Armed with Christmas gift money and in Xiamen for the holidays, I sought for the best price I could find them for in the area. Being sold for $700 in the Philippines, $569 with a cash discount from the Xiamen Sony store, and $499 from an Amazon sale, I decided to have it shipped to a friend visiting Hawaii. That didn't push through which forced me brush up on my Mandarin and scour through Chinese search engines which then led me to https://www.jd.com which I might add had amazing prices for almost all the IEMs I searched.

I found the IER-M7 for sale for RMB3499 or around $493. I locked on this but came across the issue that I was departing Xiamen in less than the amount of days it would take to deliver. Frustrated, I renewed my search via Chinese internet but this time scouring through Chinese audio forums which led me to this article documenting a successful Xiamen headphone meet: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/76608246

After a google translate and identifying the host of the event:


Welcome to 港天耳机 (pronounced kangtyen erchee) or 港天 Earphones

I had now found what I think to be the major, if not only, physical store of headphones, IEMs, and related gear for enthusiasts in Xiamen.

The store is located in:

厦门思明区汇文路81号罗宾森二期1号楼112店
Robinsons Galleria Shopping Mall Xiamen, Phase 2, 1st floor, Unit 112

Contact numbers: 13606089599, 2698799
Website: www.soogt.com
Online Store: https://gterji.taobao.com


Photo of the store


Store and owner


Video of some items on sale
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Tetc_ltv01y-r1-u9wGzapF1VDTQmRHY

 

[maricius]

Conclusion:

To conclude the narrative in the introduction. The owner did not have the IER-M7 in stock but he did offer some tea and encouraged me to try out some other IEMs. Upon explaining my situation and showing him the prices on jd.com, he told me he could order me one and have it arrive within 24 hours. Shocked, I agreed right away. He proceeded to make some phone call and after around 10 minutes he told me that if RMB3400 ($479) was acceptable. Not quite understanding, I told him that the cheapest price online was RMB3499. He clarified that he could sell it to me even cheaper than the cheapest among dozens of online options and have it arrive the next day. I agreed right away, paid, and am now a proud owner of Sony IER-M7s.

I just learned today actually that the store has been around since 2013… ha ha ha

For people demo-ing he also has some great tea!

Video of my IEMs arriving
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CSyNSZPggRyLKkLHAgAahgZfK-VH8OU_

Astell & Kern T9iE and some TEa



Dunu DK3001 given to the store owner with the store name labeled on the unit