Answer: your income. What you can afford is seen inevitably as the "low-end" of audiophilia. The highest end is always to dream for, whether $5,000 or $500,000. Does really high quality sound demand that? No, not at all. But human nature does.
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…?