Audiophile Malls Asia: Yongsan ETLand, Seoul, S. Korea

 

I don't know about you guys, but I'm like one of those husbands/boyfriends/partners who sit outside surfing the web at women's clothing stores. So while "the girls" were out shopping and getting pedicures in Seoul, I decided to take a couple hours' detour to the Yongsan ETLand which is about a 10 minute walk away from the massive Yongsan subway station.

I suspect in the Western world (North America and Europe), it's quite rare to find a good concentration of stores selling hi-fi hardware any more. Unless one is fortunate enough to have a large dealer in town, audio shows seem to be the only place left to see a large number of brands under one roof. However, as you might remember for past articles (like this, this), in Asia, the concept of an "audiophile mall", or "hifi-mall" still exists, so let's document some of these places in 2026... this time, we take a peek in Seoul.

As a visitor, obviously there's no way I'm seriously in the market to be purchasing anything substantial to bring home to Canada - unless something is truly a massive saving, transportation and taxes would eat up any savings. This means I'm just a tourist window-shopper. As such, I make sure to be respectful of the store owners' time, made sure to take photos only when allowed, and will not ask them to do any significant work on my behalf.

With that, let's wander around ETLand:

As you might expect, in a modern technology mall, audio hardware has long been surpassed by other types of products representing the cutting-edge these days. Stuff like computers, GPUs, enclosures with funky LED lights, the DJI stores across Asia with drones, video cams, and related stuff are all here among the floors. The Chinese EV carmaker BYD also has a good-sized store on the main floor.

Models and replicas are pretty common in Asia; I saw an interesting store above with its selection of air guns and other weaponry.

So, nestled among these kinds of stores on the second floor at ETLand, we come across a nice selection of "high end" hi-fi:

From these photos, already I think you get an idea of the kinds of store set-ups you'll see here. A ton of hardware available on display but far from the best places to audition to appreciate sound quality and nuances.

Ah yes, the JBL 4430 "butt-speakers" in the flesh. 😄 IMO, one of the most ugly looking speakers I've ever seen. 

 

I saw this little guy in one of the shops. It's obviously taken some inspiration from the Devialet Phantom speakers. This thing is called the UB+ dB1 selling for only US$230; basically a portable Bluetooth speaker (18.5cm/7.3" diameter, 1.5kg, advertised 5-8 hours charge time, 20 hours play time) targeting those who want "double bass" from a Singaporean company I was told. Also has 3.5mm phono input and the USB-C port is used for charging and flash drive with music files. I believe it can be paired for stereo playback.

I spy some MoFi Sourcepoint speakers in this horde...

B&W 800 D3's I believe.

New JBL L100's.

As you can see in the image above with the sofa in the picture, this is the typical "listening space" available in these stores - tiny. Depending on which set of speakers you're auditioning, there will be all kinds of issues with acoustics. At best, hopefully you're listening with a more direct "near field" kind of sound rather than being obscured by all that equipment in the way! Could be quite a bit of work for the storekeeper when customers specifically want to hear one or another of these devices.

Another example of the listening space with stuff right behind the head. And what's behind there?

Some vacuum tubes for those who are into/need this stuff. 🙂

A few of the stores looked like this outside. So much hardware that it literally spills over. After hours, I don't even know if they bother to take all these speakers into the shop.

Hmmm, I'm not sure how beneficial that absorption panel and quadratic diffuser are in such a space! Looks like a cherry Paradigm Signature S2 on the left among other interesting stuff like the Western Electric horns at the back, Mark Levinson amps, and Asian brands I'm not familiar with.

 

A potpourri of Leak, TEAC, JBL, Marantz, Klipsch...

Even more stuff and note the listening sofa position with hard reflective table.

For a serious hi-fi buyer, I think there's enough hardware among the stores to rummage through this place for hours. The store owners were very nice and offered to play some music for me with whatever was currently set up. Nobody declined my request to take photos of their store (not always the case in Asian stores). I couldn't find anyone who could communicate well in English however, so interactions were limited.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the music stores in this mall:

I think I counted 5 quite large music stores selling mostly CDs, vinyl, a few SACDs. One thing I noticed was that all the equipment stores demoed classical music when I went in for a listen, and all the music stores had background classical music playing.

Given that most of this hardware were clearly imported, the prices were not inexpensive; at least the numbers I was quoted when asked (ie. I saw the MoFi Sourcepoint 10 and asked about those). Otherwise, none of the items had price tags on them so I expect that there's flexibility and locals would apply negotiation protocols to get good deals.

As for the music, CD's were around US$25 and new vinyl ranged from US$35-$65; again, no savings compared to what I would get in Canada. I'm sure in Korea competition with online shopping would be fierce.

I did not get a strong sense that digital music streamers were a common product being sold at this mall; there's an "old-skool" vibe whether intentional or not. While many of the products and brand names are contemporary, I can imagine this place looking and operating no differently 20 or 30 years ago. Yes, the majority of store reps were older gentlemen.

I visited ETLand on a weeknight around 6 PM. By that time, this part of the mall was very quiet with only a handful of shoppers walking by and a number of stores closed already. I wonder how the "high end" hi-fi business is these days in Korea; are we also looking at this being an old-man hobby - akin to the old dudes in Asia enjoying their bird cages drinking tea in the mornings? On the positive side, I saw some shipping activity with workers moving what looked like large speakers leaving a store and boxes of stuff being delivered to another.

A fun little audiophile side trip that got me out of the ubiquitous stores selling beauty products and services, clothing, stuffies that other members of my family seemed attracted to in Seoul. 😴

Let's see of there are other audio malls in other cities this trip.