The Story of Becoming a HIFI Enthusiast
The reason I wanted to write this is honestly just that a moment of regretful tears earlier this year sparked a passion for buying HIFI gear, and then my experiences visiting the Chengdu HIFI exhibition and the feelings after purchasing equipment
But I feel like I have so many stories and connections with music, and it’s rare to pick up the pen and reminisce, so let me start from the beginning
How It All Began
The furthest back I can trace things is probably that I was lucky enough to pretty much have my own computer, you could say all the stories to come started from here
In Guanyin Mountain in Xiamen, a place on the island super close to the sea, our family used to run a delivery shop there
About one or two bus stops to the right was the beach. There was a daily sea breeze, though there were also quite a few office buildings nearby. When I was in early elementary school, I’d help out, I’ve driven a tricycle, gone into office buildings to deliver packages
To the left was Software Park Phase III. When my dad drove me to school in the mornings, I’d often count the number of companies I saw along the way, and I was even proud enough to declare that because I was close to 4399[^4399] here, I could play the newest games
I’ll add some photos when I go back to Xiamen in the summer
But let me get back on topic. Because I had a computer, I’d often use it to listen to music, and consciously treated it as a form of entertainment. Even with those cheap accessory-level little speakers, I could still have a great time
Something I still remember vividly is that even during lunch, I’d actively switch songs, wanting to show my dad my taste
But when you’re a kid, it’s really hard to have your own style, you basically just listen to whatever’s popular. Jay Chou, JJ Lin[^jaychou], the EDM and traditional Chinese-style music that were hot at the time
Every post-00s kid has that memory, right, That era when the internet was dominated by Alan Walker, now it’s become a symbol of “Jiahao”[^jiahao] vibes. Sigh, time… oh, the innocence of the early internet days
But back then I never really had a specific preference, maybe just a fondness for certain songs. It was picking the tallest among the short, hardly something you’d call being moved. To say something a bit controversial, I even feel like phonk is a continuation of the Jiahao lineage. Anyway, I just can’t get into that style
The First Tears of Regret
The earliest tears of regret I can still remember now were from listening on our family’s OPPO phone
It must’ve been late elementary school. I only found out recently that OPPO actually had a music phone lineup, their DAC and amp chips aren’t bad even by today’s standards[^oppo]
I keep using my school year as a time marker, if you want to know roughly when, I was born in 2006
The device was the EarPods-style earbuds that came bundled with the phone
They looked something like the picture below. Back then it seemed really popular to include this kind of accessory
The song was Star - [Eric Chen](https://music.163.com/artist, id=12605661)[^netease]
Ever since I got into HIFI, I’ve kept hearing about the concept of psychoacoustics. Even with better gear now, it’s hard to recapture that flow state from the first time I heard it
But I can still remember, and I can still feel it now
A pure and expansive backdrop, faint yet resolute, crisply striking at the heartstrings. The music as a whole brings a greater overview effect
Light leaks in through the cracks. My mind is clearer than ever. The higher I climb, the more I see, Enthralled, Cultist Simulator
The cover is the Milky Way, the title is Star. I also want to be that star twinkling in the vast sea of people, faint, but still glowing. Forever with tears in my eyes, forever believing that something beautiful is about to happen
Back then it was literally tears of regret. That emotion has stayed with me to this day, the desire to hear better sound quality, to explore more of the music I love. That obsession has persisted, so getting into HIFI was no surprise at all
Charlotte
On a side note, this hobby of wanting to buy audio equipment might have come from Charlotte[^charlotte], the first anime that suddenly burst into my life
Those endlessly long elementary school holidays, flipping through every category page on Tencent Video[^tencent-video] just to find something fun, and then you clicked on the first anime of your life
Well, saying “first”isn’t quite right, before that, to kill time, I also watched Naruto. But it was those mind-numbingly boring first 300+ episodes, and then one day I had an epiphany and never watched it again. Even an elementary schooler could tell it was pure filler
But Charlotte hit me hard. My first encounter with all those quirky, offbeat conversations, that everyday manzai[^manzai] comedy, people can live this interestingly!
But back to the main topic. Thinking about it, it’s been ten years already. I’ve forgotten most of the specific plot details, but that ED, both the song and the illustration, I’ve always loved. The former is still one of my most-played tracks, and the latter has been my wallpaper for eleven years
Pedestrians, starry sky, and thousands of household lights all flow past, hurriedly blurring.
She sits alone on an isolated island, letting reality crumble around her, finishing one song.
It was from here that I developed an obsession with portable playback devices. It becomes a barrier against the outside world, an anchor for one’s inner self.
I love this subcultural melancholy, the aloofness of the clear-headed and the fullness of the heart.
Believing in one’s own uniqueness, not begging for resonance, watching coldly with self-reflection, yet passionately living through every morning and dusk that belongs only to oneself.
At least for me at 20 now, this image of Nao Tomori is my ideal as a marginal person.
But looking back, it’s amazing that I’ve apparently liked this kind of character who seems capricious on the surface but is actually very reliable for ten years…
Also, although it started because the Type-C port on my portable DAC/amp iBasso DC04 Ultra got loose and needed repair, I also bought the KENWOOD MG-G708, the same model as Nao Tomori’s, for collection and commemoration.
Honestly, it’s not just that. Loving to collect these old second-hand products is really interesting. You gather information everywhere to understand parameters and reviews, on domestic and foreign platforms, and this time I even went through many 2013 Japanese buyer reviews.
And there’s a very empty, quiet state of mind here. Most electronic products are like this, performance parameters above all, people come and go without mercy. Precisely because this is an understandable human convention, it feels a bit lonely.
Perhaps it’s because I’m going against the trend with a feeling of reminiscing about people through objects that I can understand it better. During those nights waiting for the repair, I put it by my bedside and listened, and I fell asleep quickly and slept well.
Learning its story is even more sigh-inducing. This was KENWOOD’s last portable audio player. In the same month it was released, JVC essentially completed the operational merger of KENWOOD.
The MG-G708, as the swan song of the KENWOOD brand’s independent operation, first introduced a Class-W capacitor-less digital headphone amplifier. This amplifier circuit generates a negative power supply internally, achieving dual-power-supply (± power) drive and completely eliminating the DC coupling capacitor at the output. This design thoroughly solved nonlinear distortion in the low-frequency range, significantly improving sound separation, vocal positioning, and low-frequency texture.
On the software side, KENWOOD also brought down the “Supreme” sound-quality compensation technology previously praised on high-end models. It can dynamically predict and replenish high-frequency signals lost in lossy compressed audio like MP3 and AAC, making ordinary lossy music sound closer to CD quality.
For the sake of sound quality without compromise, Bluetooth was completely cut. At the time, to eliminate electromagnetic interference from wireless radio frequency signals on the internal analog amplification circuit, the G708 decisively abandoned this increasingly popular feature. Doing subtraction, only to obtain purer sound.
After the MG-G708, the newly merged JVC KENWOOD adjusted its strategic focus. With the rapid rise of smartphones, the traditional non-smart portable MP3 player market began to shrink sharply. JVC Kenwood decided not to continue updating KENWOOD-brand portable audio players; the Media Keg series was officially discontinued and ended.
It can be said that the MG-G708’s development was completed during KENWOOD’s independent period, gathering the entire obsession and crystallization of effort of the team as an old audio manufacturer and pushing it to market. Such a machine full of sincerity, yet it collided with a cruel historical moment. This G708 without Bluetooth, focused on sound quality, became KENWOOD’s “Guangling San” in the Walkman field, a true swan song in the real sense.
The back plate says “Made in 2011”, a bold pink-purple color scheme, and the cheap plastic even feels more nostalgic.
[^4399]: 4399 is a Chinese web portal famous for its massive collection of Flash and H5 mini-games, think of it as a Chinese Roblox for the browser era. For kids growing up in 2010s China, it was the go-to gaming site.
[^jiahao]: “Jiahao” is a Chinese internet meme/stereotype referring to a certain subculture of young men associated with flashy, try-hard aesthetics, somewhat analogous to “e-boy”or “chav”vibes in Western internet culture.
[^oppo]: OPPO is a major Chinese consumer electronics brand, primarily known for smartphones. In the 2010s, they marketed a “music phone”series with dedicated audio chips, unusual for the time, which gave surprisingly decent sound quality for a phone.
[^netease]: The link points to NetEase Cloud Music (, China’s most popular music streaming platform, often compared to Spotify, but with a much stronger social/community features and a comment culture where users share personal stories under songs.
[^jaychou]: Jay Chou (ㄦ, and JJ Lin ( are two of the biggest Mandopop stars of the 2000s, 010s, as ubiquitous in Chinese-speaking world as Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran are in the West.
[^charlotte]: Charlotte is a 2015 anime by P.A.Works, written by Jun Maeda. It follows students with special abilities, a blend of comedy, drama, and heartbreak that defined a generation of anime fans.
[^tencent-video]: Tencent Video is one of China’s largest streaming platforms, similar to Netflix or Hulu, but with a huge catalog of anime, dramas, and variety shows.
[^manzai]: Manzai is a traditional Japanese double-act comedy style, essentially the ancestor of xiangsheng (０) in Chinese culture, or somewhat akin to Abbott and Costello-style rapid-fire banter.