What defines mid-fi versus high-end?


I’m in my mid fifties and I recall 30 years back mid-fi to me fell into the NAD, Adcom, B&K…. For high-end I considered Mac, some of the Counterpoint offerings, Cary…. so forth.  I had another post going where I mentioned I acquired an Onkyo  home theater receiver that retailed new for $1,100.   Yet another agoner responded that it does not rate as mid-fi.   We all have our opinions of course.   So right or wrong here.
How do you define the parameters of high-end versus mid-if?  By money range, by brand…?

 

pdspecl

Showing 2 responses by audioguy85

Nowadays, lots of so call low budget speakers, amps, cd players, turntables, etc that are very very good, that actually produce High Quality sound. What is High Fidelity? That is very subjective. Some of this so called hi-end stuff sounds like crap. To me, it is more fun seeking out the lower cost stuff that performs way above its price. A few examples would be, the Sphinx integrated, the wharfedale diamond 225’s, Elac b-6 (the original one), the music hall mmf-7, the Marantz cd players (take your pick), mine is the hd-cd1, Akg k550’s, Graham slee novo, Musical Fidelity v90 dac, audioquest type-4, etc etc etc...you are getting a good slice of the High Fidelity pie for not an insane amount of money. I mentioned just some components I have first hand knowledge of, those that I have heard. I'm sure there are many many more. 

The size of your wallet, and the amount of envy for those who can afford a better system. 😁