I was in Shenzhen over the weekend (just over the border from Hong Kong) in China. Thirty years ago it was a fishing village and now a city of a couple of million. A real example of capitalism under communism. We were staying in a Crown Plaza where my brother-in-law has connections, in a very nice suite with a concierge/butler (for US$70 per night - special rate - normal rate is about $140). My sister-in-law mentioned that I collected vinyl and they found a couple of shops that had used classical vinyl and took us to a building with quite a few audio shops - mostly used American and European audio, but some Chinese made. Several stores also had pro audio equipment. Anyway, it was most impressive for a supposed back water town (there are hundreds of Chinese cities over a million in population.) Among the equipment for sale was a pair of Mbl Radialstrahers - the ones that list for $200K US. There certainly is a lot of money there. Many of the stores carried used MacIntosh tube amps, some Altec Voice of the Theatre horns, and other vintage stuff- Thorens TT. There was some Chinese tube stuff and a lot of Chinese tubes. No R2R though. Shenzhen is famous for pirated goods - from cheap to really excellent copies of purses, watches, dresses. These were real, however. Fortunately TP tapes can't be digitally copied, since DVD's sell for $1.40 and blurays sell for $9. Increasingly there are Chinese brands which sell on their own merits - some better than the Chinese goods that we get at Walmart. Typical workers get paid about $150/mo, about 3-5 times what they would make as farmers. But the skilled workers - managers and technical people can be paid as much as in the US. So they have Mercedes, Lexus, BMW's and the top of the food chain have mansions like Donald Trump, and Mbl Radialstrahlers.. BTW, Shenzhen is connected to Hong Kong by a subway about 45 minute, $4 ride from Hong Kong. The only catch for a US citizen is that the entry visa (which can be multiple times within a year) costs about $150 - what the US charges for Chinese to visit the US. Larry