Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lan647 
A serious argument to why the TS just place headphones he haven't heard in quality standards based on the price is what I need.
Dude, you're ridiculous. You don't understand what it means to differentiate between mid-fi and hi-fi headphones.
Basically: the differentiation is actually primarily about price. It is NOT to say that the mid-fi headphones do not have hi-fi sound qualities, however. The understanding is that most of these mid-fi headphones do in fact have hi-fi SQ. In fact, many people prefer the SQ of certain "mid-fi" headphones (which have HIFI SQ) to that of certain "hi-fi" headphones. The classification really is about the price primarily, which you're taking wrong because you think it is an attempt to say that these headphones do not or cannot sound as good as "hi-fi" headphones when it is not. I have KRK KNS 8400s, which easily deliver greater detail and clarity than headphones costing multiple times as much as they do. They are, by SQ, hi-fi headphones. If you asked me how I would classify them, however, I would say they are slightly below mid-fi because they are cheap ($120).
"Then wouldn't Beats be mid-fi since they are in that price range too?" No! Because the assumption to begin with is that we are talking about headphones with hi-fi sound quality only! Which explains why, yes, "mid-fi" vs. "hi-fi" really is a distinction in price with the understanding that both groups are hi-fi SQ headphones, and that sometimes "hi-fi" headphones sound better to most people than "mid-fi" headphones (e.g. "I like my high fidelity D2000s, but they just really can't match the SQ of the HD800s because with their greater price gobs of research and testing and materials and effort was poured into them, which by consensus is one of the best headphones around"), sometimes "hi-fi" headphones and "mid-fi" headphones are very comparable and there is no clear consensus on which one sounds better and it comes down to personal taste, and even sometimes certain "mid-fi" headphones may sound better to most people than "hi-fi" headphones! In any one of those three cases, you can find people on either side of the aisle. Meaning, even in cases where a mid-fi is paired up against a hi-fi and group consensus is that the hi-fi is better, you can still find certain people who would prefer the sound of the mid-fi, because, since we're only talking about headphones with hi-fi SQ to begin with, and since everyone has different tastes and preferences, even though the hi-fi "should" sound better because its greater price afforded more to be put into it that is not necessarily true for everyone.
If you still don't get it after I explained all that, then you just need to understand that you have no idea what people mean by mid-fi vs. hi-fi, even though I would imagine most other people on here who read discussions like this know perfectly well what the distinction is.
