The best I can do is an analogy with the video world: mid-fi is 720p and hi-fi is 2k and up. And that is still being simplistic. You still need to know how to set it up properly in a suitable environment.
Money is just a part of it but you also need knowledge, lots of it. So be ready to hire a professional if you have the dough but not the know-how. Thinking it’s all about money is tantamount to going to a restaurant and ordering the most expensive dish because it’s going to be the testiest.
We also need to stop comparing hi-fi to sport cars and mid-fi with SUVs. If I am going out of town with my wife, I would rather drive a Lexus RX350 F-sport with a Mark Levinson audio system than an uncomfortable, stiff Lamborghini. In fact. I would pick a luxury SUV anytime unless I am going to the race track with the boys.
Finally, it’s not totally subjective. We know what we want: we want the picture in our TV to look like what we see when we look through the window and we want our hi-fi system to sound like what we heard in that concert hall. Is it attainable? You decide.
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…?