So far, the term ‘Chi-Fi’ (a coinage of Chinese and Hi-Fi) has been widely used in the head-fi community to describe the flood of Made-In-China IEMs, headphones, DAPs, streamers and headphone amp/DAC/preamps.
I am getting the feeling that Chi-Fi will soon expand to the home hi-fi sector and disrupt it like Chinese EVs have disrupted the car industry worldwide.
Chinese manufacturers are already making DACs, streamers and DAC/headphone amp/preamps which are really good…and really affordable. I have been using a FiiO K9 PRO ESS DAC/headphone amp/preamp for more than a year and am very pleased with its performance which has outclassed the Wyred4Sound DAC2 that I had used for many years. Online shopping store Red Ape is selling it at RM2,999, which is very affordable.
FiiO launched the full-size 43-cm-wide S15 streamer at CES 2025 and they are aiming at the home audio market. What Hi-Fi? noted that it is a direct challenger to the Cambridge streamer. The FiiO S15 is already available in Malaysia at RM4,599 which is affordable even for the millennials and Gen Zers. For that amount money, you get the top AKM chip and loads of features.
FiiO is not the only Chinese company making exciting, innovative and affordable components. You just have to check out products made by Shanling (which makes a limited-edition high-end T35 CD player-cum-streamer priced at RM68,800 compared with other high-end CD players that cost RM100,000 and more), Matrix Audio, SMSL, Topping, Gustard, Fosi Audio and Eversolo. Hong Kong-based Lumin makes high-end components which are just as good, if not better, but cheaper than their US or European rivals. And now WiiM has set the bar even lower for good-sounding cheap components.
As for amps, I may be wrong but I think the Chinese manufacturers have been more successful with Class D (Fosi Audio and SMSL) and valve amps even though there are some decent-sounding Class AB ones from Tonewinner and Kinki Studio. Valve amps from Cayin, available at Stars Picker, sound quite good and are affordable.
The weak link in Chi-Fi is the speakers category. Though there are decent clones of the BBC LS3/5a by SoundArtist and good reviews of speakers by Swan and Aurum Cantus, there have not been really impressive speakers from China. However, the Energy and Jamo brands from the troubled Voxx International were sold to Chinese investors last year, so it is possible that these Chinese-owned Western brands may be the flagbearers of a Chinese disruption of the hi-fi speaker industry.
i conclude by urging millennials and Gen Zers who complain about the astronomical prices of components from Europe and US to start looking at Chi-Fi — streamers and DACs from China for the head-fi market may sound better than components for home audio…and they are very affordable too.
