Where does "MidFi" differ from "HiFi" or "LOFI"?

@cd318  +1 for Andrew Robinson

more folks ought heed his "recovering audiophile" wisdom

@audiotroy - 100% agree that a DACs sound is almost entirely derived from it's analog stage, however, the philosophy of the digital-to-analog conversion does play an important part and the execution of the philosophy is very important.

As far as LowFi | MidFi | HiFi - I feel I land somewhere between Mid and Hi depending on the component. That being said, I have stumbled into a system that now has good synergy and I really like listening to it after years of buying this and that or the next big thing only to be disappointed in the end.

I think someone else commented on this and synergy is the key. You can use older components or LowFi components and end up with pleasing sound that you enjoying listening to as long its it has good synergy. I wish I would have learned this long ago.

I really hate the term “midfi” it’s so hard to determine what that is. There’s so many price points for audio gear and levels of performance. Also price is also not commensurate with performance in many cases. In my opinion it’s either hifi, or not, there’s no middle ground. 

@dinov , reviewer Andrew Robinson put his personal classification based purely on price:

budget: under $1K

midfi- $1K to $3K

hi-end- over $3K

His product of the year for ALL categories in 2022 was the Polk R7 speaker, in the mid fi category. You don’t have to cost the most to be good.

When Andrew Robison says, "The delta to get that last 5% improvement costs thousands upon thousands of dollars.."

I would agree in that you could spend tens of thousands of dollars on more expensive components or spend tens of thousands of dollars experimenting with components to close the gap.  Either way it's not cheap!