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The joys of mid-fi

What I’m writing about here applies to classical music but might have parallels in other music too. I’ve brought this topiic up in different ways before.

Years ago when I was blissfully ensconced in mif-fi, I could easily compare different performances of the same classical work with the confidence that the sound quality would be essentially the same. There would be no issues of soundstaging, detail, et al that would make it hard for me to compare. It was easy to judge a performance on its own merits without complicating factors. Now, it’s almost impossible to assess a performance without placing SQ into the mix. A mediocre recording might be extremely attractive due the sound alone, Conversely, a very good performance might be shunted aside as “unlistenable.”

Oh, for the good old days of mid-fi! 😁

128x128rvpiano
abnerjack
205 posts
 

I totally agree; bad recordings can certainly diminish the pleasure of good performances.  On the other hand, good recordings don't improve bad performance, they just make the bad performance more obvious.  But oh my, when you couple excellent performance with a high quality recording, played on a nice system, you have it all.  Maybe the payoff is worth the trouble.

Some "music lovers" will be critical of this view.  Some seem to be able to appreciate the underlying music, regardless of the quality of the reproduction.  

immatthewj
1,898 posts
 

Where does mid-fi end and hi-fi begin?  What one man or woman sees as hi-fi is only mid-fi (at best) to another.

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 

 

A great topic!

Art Dudley included the subject of the ability of superior hi-fi components to afford the listener deeper access into the musical performances contained in recordings, irrespective of the "sound" of the recordings and/or component(s). He held that it was a matter of the ability of the component/system to "play the music", an ability separate from the quality of the "sound" of same.

Listening to a hi-fi tends to raise our expectations. I don’t expect a car CD player to make music sound "good", so when it doesn’t I’m not disappointed.

 

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