To remain profitable, many hi-fi companies have outsourced production to faraway countries with lower labor costs. That, certainly, is a legitimate way of doing business. Yet many other hi-fi makers have chosen to work with suppliers that are local, regional, or at least domestic. There are good reasons for doing so, those manufacturers maintain.
Some of the advantages are obvious. Local labor may cost more, but shipping what they make is much cheaper. Cost “is only one of the factors to account for when designing and manufacturing complex objects such as a turntable, a loudspeaker, or a streaming DAC—but it’s often what
