gofar99 Messages: 1949 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, I believe I would differentiate it by what the equipment is designed to do. Both pro and hi-fi gear are designed to reproduce or record music. The difference is that most pro gear is designed to work in more difficult situations. For fixed pro gear it needs to be up and running 100% of the time and be consistent if not really top level sound. For portable gear it needs to be all that plus durable. Connectors need to be able to pulled apart many times and not fail. Amps, mixers and such need to withstand temperature extremes, high humidity and electronically noisy environments and function well.
The mix up as I see it is a marketing hype. I have seen many budget devices claim to be pro gear as a way to entice you to buy them. They are frequently about as far away from real pro devices as is possible. Often even very marginal as non-pro gear. The label is sort of used like putting chrome on a cheap car and calling it a premium model.
A distinguishing characteristic of a lot of pro gear is the use of three pin balanced interconnects (either XLR or 1/4 inch 3 conductor phone plugs and jacks). No guarantee there but if they are missing then it is almost certainly a non-pro piece of equipment.
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