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

NAD most definitely is mid as well as your speakers. Like others who’ve commented, HiFi requires spending 50k plus for a separates component type system. But who cares about the label? Why are you asking anyway? If you love your stereo and sonics then it really doesn’t matter what arbitrary label you or somebody else thinks your stereo is.

Buying HiFi equipment brings a whole new set of headaches. To get all of the potential out of the gear, you’ve got to also be willing to go all the way with your room, cables, power conditioning as well. Otherwise why spend the money?

All those guys who have their gear against the front wall and their racks between the speakers look awesome and they’re enjoying their music just as much as somebody that has a dedicated listening room built for the best possible sonics using high end gear.

It’s all relative. Don’t get caught up in a subjective name for your rig, just enjoy what you have...

johnnotkathi

Good to read about NAD/Thiel combination. Feel free to join Us over on the Thiel Owners thread. You will find a few fans and owners of the CS 1.6 loudspeaker.

Happy Listening!

there are a couple of inherent problems with those terms. First, they are subjective. There is not a standard definition, and what sounds really good to you may not do it for me. Second, the terms are relative. Someone who owns $150,000 system may smugly think he has reached the nirvana of "hi-fi". but that system may be in the dreaded category of "mid fi" to the man who owns a half a million dollar system. I've noticed that for a lot of people think anything that costs a little less than what they have bought is mid fi and anything that costs a little more is a waste of money. So, these subjective labels tend to generate more heat than light and more often than not inhibit rather than encourage constructive discussion.

it's not about how much money you have spent on your system or how long it has taken you to put it together. I think it's about taking the money you have that you are willing to put into this hobby and building a system that brings you joy in listening to music. That's a subjective thing and will be different for everybody. There are a lot of knowledgeable people here, and on similar sites that can help you achieve that. But once these labels start getting thrown around, the constructive part of the discussion is generally over. So, as others have said, best to focus on what you can do with the budget you have to build a system that maximizes your enjoyment of the hobby because this is not a contest, it's about how you enjoy the music.

Hifi vs. Midfi vs. Lofi… categorical distinctions that are so subjective as to be more confusing than not; mostly marketing terms in how they’re used. Hifi stands for high fidelity - i.e. gear that will play back music with as little alteration to the mastering as possible - add no sound signature past the digital file, cassette, LP etc. Some nice kit by design is in a technical sense not great for the task of true hifi (again, by the literal meaning of the abbreviation). Much kit marketed as hifi is essentially unverified by real / legitimate testing. Hence hifi being more of a marketing moniker in the real world.

Midfi and lowfi came about as relative descriptors of kit that generally revolves around more widely affordable price points - you don’t tend to see folks talking about these three categories in terms of measurements or experiments with proper sampling, so the previous comments alluding to the terms being a way for market tier-ing and purchase-validating seem fairly accurate to me.

How hifi something is has nothing to do with how enjoyable it is to you. Some folks like a lot of “sound signature” from their kit be it from particular tubes, specific peculiarities of speaker cabinet or baffle design, etc. Believing in hifi is believing the mastering job of all music playback you consume needs zero further alteration in-playback chain (or in-room). Of course, many folks will agree that’s often not ideal.

Technically, how hifi a product is has absolutely zero to do with its cost. If something is expensive and has no available metrics / comparative studies to support its ability for (technically, not subjectively) audibly flawless playback, in today’s day and age, it’s not necessarily hifi despite whatever the price tag may suggest.

Better to consider vintage gear as just that - heritage enjoyment. Plenty of it can play splendid together and can result in Hifun - the far more important abbreviation to pursue in all this, eh!? 😉

I dont think and i know that one of the best amplifier of 1987 and the AKG K340 are not mere vintage low -fi or mid-fi...

These labels make no sense but most people cannot put an experimented  hearing  content on acoustics various factors... Then because they only identify price tags they go for this marketing ploy ...And anyway those with the budget will never believe anything as my motto : acoustics and synergy and mechanical and electrical controls matter more than price tags...

Some will say that my observation is born from envy...On the opposite i am very pride of my peanuts cost system...my jaw drop on the floor each time i use my 2 systems because i optimized it as it is...

I lacked the money to go officially in what they called purchase in high-fi, but i acquired the necessary experience to do it with past high fi vintage and acoustics and various mechanical and electrical controls...

Timbre experience and listener envelopment and sound sources dimensions and level of crosstalk , transients, bass, etc are not purely subjective concept they become objective when you had learn how to create and modify them in a system/room...

My speakers and headphones are unique because i modify them...Then instead of being envious of those who paid big amount of money i pity them now... The only one i know really better my low cost system really and not marginally , must own a dedicated acoustic room and a speakers/room system tuned for one another...