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Do I have a “MidFi” system or not?

I'm going to say mid-fi for a couple of reasons. First, Adcom is pretty good, but It's built to a price point and it's price point peers probably wouldn't be considered terribly high end. Second, JBL themselves consider the 500 series a mass market product apart from their Synthesis line. You won't find them in a Synthesis dealer or on the Synthesis website.

And just to be clear, I'm using an Adcom pre-amp, and it's pretty good, but I know there are pre-amps with much better noise and channel separation.
 
34dean said:
Have gotten back into audio gear again over the past 6 months or so and put together the following system. Is this considered “MidFi” or no?

AptHolman Preamp
Adcom GFS-545II Power Amp
Onkyo C-7030 CD player
Musical Fidelity V90-DAC
Pioneer PL-510S Turntable w/ AT155LC cartridge
JBL Studio 530 speakers
Polk Audio PSW505 Subwoofer

Wondering where the line is between Lo/MidHi Fi?
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I've never heard of any of them. So it's Hi-Fi.
 
sqlsavior said:
Submitted for your approval:

low-low-fi *
low-fi
upper-low-fi
low-mid-fi
mid-fi
upper-mid-fi
low-hi-fi
mid-hi-fi
hi-fi
low-hi-end
mid-hi-end
upper-hi-end **

* - someone else's system
** - your own system
Click to expand...

or:
Dirt cheap
Cheap
Reasonably priced
Moderately priced
Moderately Expensive
Expensive
Wicked Expensive
Ludicrously Expensive

:)
 
ReactiveLoad said:
I'm going to say mid-fi for a couple of reasons. First, Adcom is pretty good, but It's built to a price point and it's price point peers probably wouldn't be considered terribly high end. Second, JBL themselves consider the 500 series a mass market product apart from their Synthesis line. You won't find them in a Synthesis dealer or on the Synthesis website.

And just to be clear, I'm using an Adcom pre-amp, and it's pretty good, but I know there are pre-amps with much better noise and channel separation.
Click to expand...


Doesn't matter whatfi, as long as you're blasting music you love!
 
Tom Brennan said:
Mid-fi is a pejorative invented in the 1970s by snotty Baby Boomers to socially distinguish boutique hi-fi gear from mass produced hi-fi gear. Don't pay any attention to it.
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Absolutely. I am still burning from the scorn on another thread when I was informed that my Thorens TD-125 Mk II and Yamaha CA-1010 were mere mid-fi. Zeesh!
 
I've done a bit of upgrading over the last year or so and even with what I have, at least some of the stuff I'm sure would be considered nothing more than "mid fi" by a lot of folks. In the end who really cares though, as long is it sounds good to you! The right combination of gear might sound really amazing, even if some of it isn't anything that's all that high end/desirable and I kind of think that in a way that makes it even better. There's a certain amount of pride that you can have not from owning the very most top quality gear, but from being clever enough to assemble a system with far less than that which still sounds great.

Also, I wonder what you think (the OP that is) of that Musical Fidelity DAC? I've seen one locally on sale and I'm tempted to jump on it. It seems to be an older model with less features, but if it's going to sound worlds better than my CD player's built in DAC, it might be worth it...
 
If the OP's gear is working right and setup well it's hi-fi sound.
But it's not hi-end gear that hopefully, but not always brings hi-end sound.

Mid-fi sound is from inexpensive or poor functioning gear or poor setup of any gear.

A lot of the 70's receivers and box speakers are joked on as mid-fi, but are actually hi-fi sound.
I'm assuming hi-fi is a term for hi-fidelity sound. Which from it's origin 70 years ago don't require much to meet.
 
To me, mid-fi just means better quality than what you're likely to find at Best-Buy, not counting Magnolia. If it cost more than a couple of hundred dollars new, it's mid-fi. Doesn't say a thing about how it plays in YOUR room. Or mine. Specs are good for comparisons, but tell you nothing about how something sounds. I don't play in the high-end world, by any means. But I want better than Walmart-quality sound.

My gear is mid-fi. The sound is hi-fi. As it should be.

And as yours will be...
 
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Dmac43 said:
or:
Dirt cheap
Cheap
Reasonably priced
Moderately priced
Moderately Expensive
Expensive
Wicked Expensive
Ludicrously Expensive

:)
Click to expand...

You forgot a few.
Dumpster Find
Curb Find
Free from Family and Friends
Dirt cheap
Cheap
Reasonably priced
Moderately priced
Moderately Expensive
Expensive
Wicked Expensive
Ludicrously Expensive
 
Fleischer said:
I am not sure that I understand the difference between mid-fi and high end. Is a Yamaha CA-1010 or CR-2020 high end, or mid-fi? If I compare a Thorens TD-160 Mk II to a TD-125 Mk II, is the former mid and the latter high end, or is the boundary line somewhere else? Are they both high end, or are neither high end?
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4-2-7 said:
Some people use the term mi-fi online to call their inexpensive, lower quality setup in the big world of audio.
High End is different,
high-end ˈproduct [countable] a product that is one of the most expensive or advanced in a company's product range, or in the market as a whole.

The definition of high-end is something considered an expensive or extreme quality item. An example of high-end is designer clothes and top-of-the-line electronic equipment
Click to expand...

4-2-7 said:
Most would use the definition of Mid-Fi for that stuff.
Click to expand...

4-2-7 said:
Nether are High End
The Thorens Reference MK I, is High End
Click to expand...

Fleischer said:
Absolutely. I am still burning from the scorn on another thread when I was informed that my Thorens TD-125 Mk II and Yamaha CA-1010 were mere mid-fi. Zeesh!
Click to expand...

While those quotes broke up you questions originally, you did not receive any scorn. You asked questions I gave you answers. If you want to believe a Thorens TD-125 Mk II is high-end go ahead, but Thorens never did. It was and is a very decent solid tables sold by the 1000s because it was affordable and is why there is so many still around at a very good price.

I think in this thread and the other people keep conflating the meaning of HiFi and High End. Since they know their equipment is not High End, they call it MidFi when maybe they should say Budget End, Low End, Mid End if you want to label something in comparison to High End. Most decent equipment is HiFi even if bought on a budget or a low dollar amount. But most is not High End unless it starts to cost a lot to most people.

My personal feeling is one starts to enter High End when their separates system components are starting to cost $5000 each or more and the total system cost is reaching an area of $20,000 and up. This would be new equipment and todays prices, nothing to do with added amounts for rarity and collectables of the past. Now that doesn't mean anything from the past is not found in a high end system, some things are High End always like the Thorens Reference MK I, I mentioned above
 
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I'm not specifically familiar with any of the OP's. I do recognize the brand names so I would say without hesitation that this system's better than a lot of gear out there.
The frustration with this interest is that there will always be much better audio equipment out there (unless you have one of the very rare price-is-no-object system).
I reinforce what others have said - enjoy what you have. Then enjoy upgrades when you can do them. Don't worry about what others have or what judgements they may pass.
 
There is lo-fi and there is mid-fi but there is no such thing as hi-end hi-fi except as an abstraction because nothing creates the sound of a live performance except a live performance. I bet your stuff sounds good, warm, pleasant, solidly mid-fi, room and source being most important at that level... all you can hope to do is get more of it, including, maybe, volume, by spending more money and time. I bet you like it, makes you smile when listening to a favorite...
 
I have to scratch my head when I see people suggest 20+ year old electronics behind $600 speakers are just as "hifi" as a pair of $10,000 Golden Ear Reference backed by a stack of Mac. Uh... No. That is a difference in sound quality equivalent to $600 speakers next to the cheapest pair of 90's multimedia computer speakers you find at Goodwill.

Is it possible to place a pair of $600 speakers and properly treat the room and get better sound than a pair of $2000 speakers? Yes, definitely. I listened to a pair of Paradigm Persona 7F's that were so poorly matched to the room that they didn't hold a candle to my Focal 936's, and those were $25,000 speakers backed up by the best Anthem electronics.

I guess that brings me to the crux in my thinking.... What does the thing actually sound like? In the big scheme of things I'm probably listening to mid-fi if you were only to look at the price of the thing. I've got maybe $7000 tied up in it and I've listened to plenty of speakers and amps that alone cost more than that. At the same time, I'd gladly put this thing up against systems costing 2 or 3 times as much because I've heard systems that cost that much more that didn't sound as good as this system in this room. Does that make it hifi? I don't know. If I walk in a shop and tell them I'm listening to Focal with a Pass amp I do get instant cred, but they're 936's and I built the amp myself.

It was Herb Reichert that said the Schiit Ragnarok and KEF LS50's were the most enjoyable system he'd heard in the 21st century, and the price of that rig wouldn't buy my speakers. Hard to say that's not hifi. It seems to me that hifi is a relative determination based on the best combinations of the best equipment out there. That's the measuring stick. What's your ideal, and where's your system measure against it? 100%? 80%? 50%? I'm feeling about 80% personally, and the point of diminishing returns is a big consideration for me. The next 5% would probably mean more than double the money. The next 10% probably be a quadrupling of the cost. To get to 95% would probably cost close to $100,000. That last 5% would take about $500,000. I'm can live with 80%.
 
A point of historical reference:

The monaural long-play records produced in the mid-to-late 1950s were often prominently labeled "Hi-Fi," "High-Fi," or "High Fidelity," frequently with a third or more of the back cover devoted to detailing and explaining -- with photographs and graphs -- the cutting edge processes and equipment that made that record label's records so superior. So Lo-Fi or Mid-Fi could be considered worse than that level of achievement. ;)
 
I buy what I can find. I buy what I can afford. After that, once home, the gear is wired, the speakers are positioned as best I can in the room, and then I listen. If I enjoy it, great. If not, I start the process over. I see no need for labels.
 
I'm assembling the component system I couldn't imagine affording in the mid-1970s...with the addition of a CD player which didn't exist then, and that most of the cassette decks that have been in the system have been more 1990ish, mainly since they needed less work than the others I came across. Turntable, Reel to reel tape deck, receiver, speakers -- pretty much all mid-70s vintage. Most of my phono cartridges were around at that time as well (not all the needles necessarily) even if not introduced then in some cases. When new, many of the pieces retailed for multiple hundreds of dollars, far out of my price range then and now. Could it all be Mid-Fi? Maybe? Mid-Fi Schmid-Fi. I don't care.
 
sqlsavior said:
Submitted for your approval:

low-low-fi *
low-fi
upper-low-fi
low-mid-fi
mid-fi
upper-mid-fi
low-hi-fi
mid-hi-fi
hi-fi
low-hi-end
mid-hi-end
upper-hi-end **

* - someone else's system
** - your own system
Click to expand...
Clears things right up! ;)

I think the terms low-fi, mid-fi, and high-fi should reference only how the given equipment sounds in the room, regardless of cost. It's a case-by-case evaluation. JM2C.
 
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