At what price is one considered an Audiophile.

one cents!

OP, I suggest you not spend much or your system will sound better than any of ours, and we won't like that.

That's why you get so many nonsense responses. They are poor people with mid-fi stereos and questionable hearing. They are also idealistic and detached from reality.

$10k, no less. And if you want Bill to envy you that would be half a million or so.

Oh, and forget about music, it's all noise. Listen to the sounds. That's audiophile.

I think it is more of an awareness of sound, equipment, market and a conversational interest in sound quality.  Cost is just what you think you can afford to spend.  An audiophile is aware of brands and those products that standout in their budget range without the fear of researching,  buying used with the idea of trading up if when a target product becomes available.  I guess that is the addition of the hobby.  Hopefully we all retain that this is about music and not equipment.  I hope this makes since! 

It’s not a $$$’s spent thing.

It’s the pursuit of accurately reproducing music with sound equipment.

That accuracy, can be empirically based, or, emotionally based. Meaning, one can try to reproduce the sound of an acoustic guitar as it would sound in your room, or, try to reproduce that sound based on how you feel a guitar should sound, or perhaps how a guitar sounds in some important memory you have of a guitar.

Whatever the case, it’s about achieving a specific quality of music reproduction. If you want your music to sound a certain way, you need equipment for that.

Some listen to equipment, most listen to music. Everyone listening to recorded music, listen through equipment.