China

China is the physical infrastructure of the loudspeaker industry: the drivers, cabinets, crossovers and finished boxes behind a great many Western nameplates come out of the manufacturing cluster in Guangdong and along the southern coast. What has changed this past decade is that the same supply chain now feeds domestic brands selling under their own names, often direct to the customer and priced against their own cost base rather than a distributor's. The personal-audio and streaming-electronics side moved first; speakers are following.