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Why is there no Mid End

We are all audiopiles quote un quote who accept the term High End to describe expensive or if you must reference grade sound reproduction. Some of us freely admit that we have mid-fi equipment but never say mid end or even sub High End. Even if you were to use the fact that High End implies a limiting superlative why don't we say this is a Low End piece we use low fi (or other language that's even worse) more frequently.
mechans

Showing 2 responses by nsgarch

nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,524 posts
 
"Hi end" is relatively recent, and thus the confusion.
Originally, the term was High Fidelity, or Hi Fi for short.
As soon as that term was coined, people naturally determined that what was not Hi Fi, must be Lo Fi(delity).

Mid Fi? I don't remember when that came along, but I'm sure that it resulted from the need to identify the huge proliferation of better-than-lo-fi products (many of them Japanese) in the late 70's and 80's. Many sold through earlier versions of stores like Circuit City, Good Guys, Best Buy, etc.

But there really is a logical continuum -- lo-fi, mid-fi, and hi-fi. What keeps changing is what falls into the last two categories :~))
nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,524 posts
 
Ozzy, my sentiments exactly, as stated earlier:

"But there really is a logical continuum -- lo-fi, mid-fi, and hi-fi. What keeps changing is what falls into the last two categories :~))"

Thanks for your support.
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