Mid-Fi, Hi-Fi or.....?


For some time I have been collecting vintage (60's/70's) gear of various levels of quality.  Trying to step things up, I am now running a NAD C 375BEE integrated amp through Thiel CS 1.6 speakers.  Am I in the "hi-fi" world now?  If not, where?  LOL.......thanks!!

johnnotkathi

agree with the jumpers, I used AQ upgrade jumpers on my NAD and others...

“If your happy and your know it, clap your hands..”. I agree with toddsyr and blackbag20. You don’t need any affirmation here. HiFi, MidFi, LowFi is reallly just rubbish. If you are listening to your system, grin on your face, foot is tapping …then your experience is what’s important. The journey is the fun, not the vehicle.

They are just musical boxes of wires…

@johnnotkathi Those jumpers look decent, just make sure to get the directions right when you install them. Pre out -> Main in. It is a super easy update, just pull the metal jumpers out and replace them with the cables.

I used the Schiit Freya+ as a replacement, along with Blue Jeans interconnects, it is one of the most cost effective preamp upgrades out there. If I did it again, I would likely opt for the Schiit Kara, as I did not use the tube stage of the Freya much, even though it did sound great. 

Terms such as Hi-Fi and Mid-Fi are so subjective as to be useless. However, I felt like I experienced an objective demonstration of the difference in my music world. Allow me to explain. Occasionally I read that Klipsch Lascalas are "mid-fi" speakers. This made me feel bad and defensive. That was until....I "isolated" the top HF bin and the LF bins on my speakers. (On Lascalas they are two separate pieces separated by 4 rubber feet) After I did that, the clarity took such a jump up that I recalled those critical comments and thought to myself, "This must be what these 'critics' are talking about!" Maybe speakers which cost $$??$$ inherently produce this level of definition(?). I don't know, but it illustrated to me that even though I was happy as a clam, this can get better if certain issues can be addressed. They don't always mean money either.