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

Looking at it from an economic standpoint.

A person who has invested $150K in his system will have a resale value of about $75K after 5 years.  Cost of ownership $15K per year.

A person who has invested $50K in his system will have a resale value of about $25K after 5 years.  Cost of ownership $5K per year.

A person who has invested $20K in his system will have a resale value of about $10K after 5 years.  Cost of ownership $2K per year.

A person who has invested $10K in his system will have a resale value of about $5K after 5 years.  Cost of ownership $1K per year.

You get the idea, pick your poison.

Does a music lover receive $13K more pleasure per year for the extra cost of their $150K system than the owner of a $20K system?   Each person decides this.

The constant in all of this, music is music.

It been said that there are no absolute truths. Just workable truths, and relatative truths. In this regard, there is no "absolute sound", just (very) subjective references to high fidelity and high(er) fidelity.

There is no absolute truth...Common place fact ...

But here once this is said you forgot acoustics when refering to high fidelity stereo system... Doing so instead of refering to controllable objective acoustics parameters and concepts and experience you refer as all marketing to the gear itself as the "source", the material design of a gear piece and his associated price tag...This is "not even wrong"... It is beside the point and put in our head by consumers marketing...

If someone want to know what is acoustics experience in stereo system , the owner manual of the best high end gear in the world is worthless..

Read an acoustician , the last genius to know what he spoke about is Edgar Choueiri .... Acoustics with an (s) is not mere room acoustic...

The gear does not determine the level of acoustic satisfaction , his rightful implementation in a House/room/ears-brain does it ...

Incredible the point to which publicity about the gear brainwashed us all ...

I will not give other example of brainwashing... I will be out of subject...

The only way to go through audiophile experience is learning how to do it not purchasing costlier materials and accusing me or others to be envious of high end ...😊 It is the opposite i pity those who buy high end very costlier product and use them in a non dedicated room bragging about gear...

Gear matter it is a common place fact ... But it is completely secondary compared to all acoustics and psychoacoustics paramaters and concepts...

Period.

Forget the gear and study acoustics a bit...

or call me envious of 100,000 bucks speakers as some just did ...😁 It is ludicrous... I am proud of my speakers low cost modifications and my acoustics controls at no cost yes...Audiophile experience for peanuts is possible sorry for those who dare to claim for the sake or their expanse that it is not possible ... It is...With vintage gear or basically well optimized low cost good gear...

Or perhaps even if i tuned my room i am deaf to high end ... 😋

balooo2

81 posts

01-23-2024 at 12:50am 

I am blessed to still have older folks in my family that to this day refer to a sound producing unit as a Hi Fi are they wrong?

Fair point. From a semantics standpoint, no, elders using Hifi in a colloquial sense are not wrong. Some decades back, many things were marketed as Hifi that probably weren’t being accurately described (even if conveniently summarized). Nowadays the bar has moved a bit and the other two categories are happy to cause further confusion, IMO 😆

@jetter …”A person who has invested $150K in his system will have a resale value of about $75K after 5 years. Cost of ownership $15K per year.”

Well, for me, I would do the math a bit different. So, my system is about $150K. Typically I will go for 10 years between major upgrades and I trade old equipment in. The roots stretch back fifty years. My last upgrade would have been $75K, but I traded stuff in… so out of the pocket was only $50K. But most current investment would still have residual value. Say half. So $25K of depreciation.

So, $2.5K / year. I listen three hours a day. That is $2.50 / hour. But there is no need to upgrade… so I could continue to drive the cost down.

One amp I kept for nearly 18 years. It was new and listed for $10k I traded it in and lost only $500.

So, nothing wrong with your calculations, but it really depends on how you invest and length of time.

Way back when, I heard a manufacturer’s rep/friend of mine state: "Audio is the cheapest hobby you can have. No green fees. Docking fees. Travel. Hotels. Lodging. Meals away from home. Outrageous insurance premiums. Risk of bodily harm/death."

I calculated that the more I drive my motorhome, the cheaper the cost per mile of ownership. And, the more we listen to our systems (good point, @ghdprentice) the less the cost per hour. When. you break it down to the "song/cut level", our systems are a true bargain by any measure, regardless of the investment.