A Zhuhai company and a Foshan workshop.

Line Magnetic — 丽磁音响 in Chinese — was founded by two brothers, Zheng Cai and Zheng Xi, in Zhuhai, in China’s Guangdong Province. Stereophile, reviewing the LM-518IA amplifier in September 2015, wrote that “in 2005, two brothers established the Line Magnetic Audio Co. Ltd., to manufacture — in their own factory in Zhuhai — distinct ranges of CD players, DACs, amplifiers, and loudspeakers.” The company’s European website and its British and Australian importers also give 2005. Its own Chinese website, however, says the company was founded in 2009; we could not establish whether that is the date the Zhuhai company was registered, so we give both.

The company works from two sites. Its website names its head office as Zhuhai Line Magnetic Audio Co., Ltd. (珠海丽磁音响有限公司), in the Tangjiawan area of Zhuhai, and lists a second “Foshan studio” in the Nanhai district of Foshan. Its European website explains the split: the Foshan studio was set up by Zheng Cai, the elder brother, and the Zhuhai company by Zheng Xi, the younger.

Zheng Cai’s career began in China’s radio industry. According to the European site, he was born in Jilin Province, graduated from the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, and was chief engineer at the Changchun radio factory from 1984 to 1991. Its Australian distributor, Angelic Sound, says he joined the valve-amplifier maker Cayin as a shareholder in 1993, serving as general manager and chief engineer, and left after its board rejected his idea of building truly high-end amplifiers — and that Line Magnetic still counts its anniversaries from 1993. We give that as the distributor’s account.

Replicas, and the lines that pay for them.

Line Magnetic’s reputation rests on Western Electric, the American company whose amplifiers and horn loudspeakers equipped early sound cinemas. Stereophile wrote in 2015 that the brothers were inspired by “vintage Western Electric movie theater electronics and loudspeakers,” and that Zheng Cai led the Classic models, including “high-quality reproductions of such vintage Western Electric gear as the renowned 91A and 86A 300B amplifiers.” The European site describes the company as a specialist in repairing and replicating Western Electric, Altec and Jensen designs, from amplifiers to field-coil drivers and horn systems.

Zheng Xi led the more affordable lines. Stereophile named the Silver and Gold series, including the LM-518IA, a single-ended triode integrated amplifier built around the 845 valve and priced at $4,450, which Herb Reichert used as the heart of his reference system. The company’s English site lists integrated amplifiers such as the LM-88IA, LM-150IA, LM-845 Premium, LM-300IA Plus and LM-212 Premium, as well as a valve DAC and CD player; it says it revived the 211 valve amplifier with models such as the LM-211IA and LM-219IA. Its Chinese site adds field-coil loudspeakers, horn speakers and transformers, and says it has more than 40 dealers in China and abroad.

On manufacturing, the European site quotes the company as saying it had 78 employees, including 15 engineers, sold 70 percent of its output abroad, and made products for other brands in Japan, Europe and the United States; Angelic Sound describes about 1,700 square metres of production space in Zhuhai with its own transformer winding. These are company and distributor accounts. The company also lists design awards, including a gold China Good Design award, a scheme run with Red Dot, and prizes in Zhuhai’s “Mayor’s Cup” and Guangdong’s “Governor Cup” industrial-design competitions; we have not checked them independently.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this guide come from one corner of southern China: the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong, around Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Dongguan. English Wikipedia notes that the delta’s industrial cities have been called the “Factory of the World” and describes the region as a major manufacturing base for electronics. Shenzhen became one of China’s first special economic zones in 1980; Zhuhai is another.

Much of that output carried other companies’ names. Darko.Audio reported in 2020 that the Dutch brand PrimaLuna’s products were built at Cayin’s factory, and the German magazine stereoplay wrote in 2021 that Cayin’s German distributor had created the Cayin brand in the late 1990s. The makers here now sell under their own names.

Valve amplifiers remain a speciality. Cayin and Line Magnetic, both Zhuhai companies, list them prominently in their ranges, and Shanling’s company history records a valve power amplifier in 2002.

Shanling, which began in Jieyang in eastern Guangdong, moved to Shenzhen in 1996; the city is also home to iBasso, which says it was founded there in 2006, and Questyle, founded in 2012. Cayin, founded in 1993, and Line Magnetic are in Zhuhai; Denafrips and Musician Audio are in Guangzhou, according to their own websites.

Much of the debate about them happens online — in reviews on Headfonics, Soundnews and Darko.Audio, and on the Audio Science Review forum, where a member posted measurements of Musician Audio’s first converter in 2020.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Two operations, one name.

The brand now spans two kinds of product. Angelic Sound, which became the exclusive Australian distributor in 2024, describes Line Magnetic Zhuhai, run by Zheng Xi, as the incorporated company behind the widely reviewed “LM-” amplifiers, and Line Magnetic Foshan as a “Western Electric Design Lab” devoted to replicas and to a newer range of valve amplifiers it sells as Analog Sound.

The distributor also says that Zheng Cai died in 2014 and that his son, Zheng Dawei, a music graduate of Zhuhai Art College, has since run the Foshan studio. We give that as the distributor’s account: Stereophile’s review of September 2015 still described Zheng Cai as leading the Classic models, which may reflect older company material, and we found no other dated source.

Abroad, the brand has reached buyers through importers rather than its own shops. Greg Chapman, writing on his Hifidelity newsletter in 2023, said he began importing Line Magnetic into Britain in 2020, and a European online shop sells the range in euros and refers buyers to regional importers; it does not name its operator. The company’s official site is lm-audio.com, in Chinese and English.

For a design guide, Line Magnetic shows how a brand can borrow an older company’s authority — Western Electric’s cinema sound — while building its own name on valves, transformers and two family workshops. Compare Cayin, where Zheng Cai once worked, according to the distributor, and Denafrips, another Guangdong maker. For this guide we use oxblood, walnut and a valve-glow amber with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Line Magnetic’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.