An Audiophile is Anyone Who Loves Audio Regardless of Monetary Status. Agree?

Yes but if you spend this additional money intelligently you will most likely get much greater and more refined sound. 

Agree. I certainly admire the folks who build and second-hand good sound together the most - the ’value’’ audiophiles. Or the people who find a particular quality in their system they really like and just groove.

For some reason I was reminded of this clip from Boogie Nights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DRZlytJpQ

vinny55,

For most of the people out there, almost $4000 is a lots of money to spend on music reproduction. n80 is correct on all accounts. You need to spend a lots of money to have an "audiophile" system. Your $4000 (or a bit less) is actually bordering on outrageous.

I honestly think that being an Audiophile is enjoying the magic of reproduced sounds in ones own private listening space.

I am not even certain music needs to be a part of the equation. 

I have a feeling there are people people out there that like listening to spoken word, great orations, poetry, even just recordings of nature or jet planes taking off. I don’t think music needs to be a part of it.

@vinny55 : You’ve kind of got all tangled up in my comments and seem to have misunderstood them all. I’m playing devils advocate here. I’m an audiophile by pure kismet. I have a decent older system that I was given.

At my cabin I routinely enjoy a nearly 40 year old 25w Toshiba receiver with a 15 year old Toshiba DVD player spinning the CDs all through a pair of Polk Audio Monitor 70s that I picked up on Craig’s list for $180....for the pair. And I enjoy listening to the music through it.

But here is the deal:

I personally would never have spent anywhere close to $4000 for a system if I was starting out fresh and chances are, even now that I’ve kind of gotten into this stuff with the system that was given to me...if it was all gone tomorrow...I’d still have to think long and hard about spending $4000 to try and replace it. And probably wouldn’t.

So all charges of elitism are misplaced. I’m just pointing out that in this and similar threads there is always this element of "oh sure, you can get great sound for a few hundred bucks"..............but in light of the majority of the conversations and recommendations that’s not what you’re going to hear in practice.

Sure, my old Panasonic record changer with round speakers is good enough.......as long as I’m enthusiastic about audio.

See....it just doesn’t ring true.