This is an interesting read but it is also a little bit sensationalist (for the intended audience anyway). It's true that that that market is so big now that ma

This is an interesting read but it is also a little bit sensationalist (for the intended audience anyway). It's true that that that market is so big now that manufacturers are looking for gaps in taste by trying loads of stuff - look at sites like squig.link and you'll see how much variety there is. But I don't think it's anywhere near as culturally driven as that. I think it's simply that high end detail used to be considered the main indicator of consumer grade audio 'quality', so that's what they all tooled up for back when they were manufacturing primarily for western consumption. I've followed Dr. Fang of HifiMan & some of their newer competition for over 15 years, and watched that industry develop and leapfrog its western equivalent in both quality and market size. As an enthusiast it's been wonderful to see - they have converged to a mass-market audio segment in which sound quality and tuning preference is either the primary feature or an overwhelming consideration, which we simply don't have over here, at least not outside the realms of gatekept audiosnobbery; we've had celebrity endorsements and beats and boses and told that woofers which fart into our brains is what 'good' sounds like. Though I guess this might be the 'western tuning' they refer to. One thing I'm looking forward to is seeing how their custom iem market grows and develops. Custom IEMs are such a humongous leap in quality of experience, but they're simply not popular or even known outside of professional performer and high end audiophile circles, almost certainly due to cost of production and complexity of fitting. But as modern tech makes ear impressions reusable[0], and skin-friendly 3d printing tech advances, fully automated production of custom tech wear feels like the natural next step. And being able to put something into your ears that you literally can't feel once it's in there and warmed up, and cuts 40db so you can comfortably listen to it at volumes far lower than conventional earphones, is divine, it's a level-up that is difficult to explain. It's certainly something more people should have access to, and a market segment that can really afford to go down in price. [0]: https://github.com/boomskats/my-earcanals https://github.com/boomskats/my-earcanals