There are 14 million stories in Guangzhou city. One of the best-known in Chinese audio is Kevin You’s move from large-scale loudspeaker manufacturer to commercial retailer in Australia.
His hi-fi journey began nearly 30 years ago in the densely populated province of Guangdong, where he was born into a hi-fi family 8,000 kilometres from his future home in Melbourne.
His people owned several hi-fi stores, and that is where a teenage You learned howto sell audio — interacting with audiophiles on the shop floor after school. Hi-fi Was in the family DNA, he says.
Upon graduating in IT in China, he banked enough to establish an audio business himself, manufacturing speakers using European drivers. It wasn’t easy at first, he remembers, and he did it without direct family support.
You proudly proclaims himself a selfmade man who eventually employed about 300 workers making speakers (brand name undisclosed for Chinese legal reasons, after selling the business) which were then retailed in stores throughout China. It was tough going, he says, with a lot of demands involving manufacture, staffing and logistics.
Although the business was “most successful” it
