I have two solid prosumer systems at home with many different size speakers trying to cover the spectrum but the more i dig into the hobby the more i feel like I actually have no idea what im doing. I really notice a huge difference when i play through my computer using an audio enhancing equalizer (boom 3D). Definitely night and day difference from just raw dogging the receiver and speakers but im sure itll never actually qualify as hifi. I notice some places around the room sound incredible but moving around the sound changes and im very aware of the physics that make this happen. How else would true hifi feel different? I can play pretty loud music with no destination and my woofers handle the bass well feeling the notes not just a rumble like some other systems ive heard. Anything i try to play without the equalizer becomes super flat and i lose alot of the mids and highs is there gear that could replace this i could add to my receiver.
hifi literally just stands for high fidelity which would be defined as a system that can reproduce sound in a way that is as close as possible to the original work. now alot of factors play into this including alot of things that are very expensive to fix which is generally why the amount some one has spent on their equipment is usually SOME indicator of how well it will sound. generally i define a system as hifi if it meets these requirements a flat in room response from 25hz to 18khz a noise floor of at least 85 db a total signal chain snr of 85 db other things such as impulse response in the room and distortion from the speakers are less important but can make the system sound cleaner my current system is about 2700$ and i would consider it hifi and even though i consider it to be way more than hifi i still think it could be improved. but the hardest things in audio to fix (bass, amplifier power, room acoustics) are incredibly expensive to achieve reference levels of especially accurate bass like damn dude i feel any less than twin svs sb 1000 subs isn’t even close to reference level bass then you need dirac or rew and bam youve already spent close 1500$ after tax.