A couple of months ago, I wanted to listen to the first recorded Mahler symphony (the 2d, conducted by Oskar Fried in 1928). The quality is abysmal--hiss like you wouldn't believe. I couldn't bear it on Paradox or HD600. But I could easily tolerate it on my lady's PM1 with the velour pads. Resolution, FR, X factor, all of the above? Dunno.

I'd say that kind of hiss would qualify as egregious, though entirely understandable for 1928!

If you're a big "analog" fan then you might want to carve out a separate category for that but I grew up knowing that everything's already quantized anyway so it never held much attraction.

I can see liking a forgiving smoothed-over ortho like the Oppo or Audeze with lo-fi. Definitely stay away from anything with spiky treble. I like the Stax Omegas (007/009) with lo-fi recordings, both have a revealing but slightly forgiving quality, with 009 for a slightly more neutral sound or the 007 for a more mello approach.

Nothing quite like the HE-1K to soften that lo-fi sound

Good topic.  Lo-fi probably includes streaming services like Pandora, or compressed, but convenient file formats like MP3.

Recording and mastering quality is a far bigger factor in SQ than any modern lossy codec at a half decent bitrate.

You guys are confusing lo-fi music with mid-fi playback equipment.  Lo-fi can actually be quite complex in transition and overlay, and any deliberate distortion is there for effect, sometimes haunting, which can be diminished in playback if not faithfully reproduced.  I for one don't wish to compromise the musical fidelity by using less than stellar audio gear.  But that's me, and I freely admit to being a resolution whore.

@drfindley:
The problem I'm having with those album releases is that those CDs (all but De Stigjl) are being held in "joint custody" by my daughter (comes from my having sent my CD purchases to her for ostensively forwarding to me while I was living in Canada - long story).  Anyway, I'm kinda loathe to buy those particular CDs again, unless there's been a noteworthy remastering since then or I've really started missing hearing that album, so I tend to buy other releases by those groups subsequently, and it's been an admittedly hit or miss affair.   

Recording and mastering quality is a far bigger factor in SQ than any modern lossy codec at a half decent bitrate.

Well and true.  I stretched the lo-fi label to fit over lossy streaming/formats (with room to spare), mostly since it's relevant to my own considerations with gear.

I feel like there's greater prevalence of the lossy issue.

I assume that most of us are using flac or at least a transparent/nearly so lossy bit rate.

Very likely.  Your first post really resonated with me, but from a different starting point. 

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Edit: Lol, maybe I did stretch it too far.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo-fi_music