You're not a true audiophile unless...

I have more than 1M of sound equipment but I don't want to be called an audiophile  because I've come to find out being and "audiophile" means you have to believe in things that are not true. It's more than a hobby it's like a cult. I'm sad to say. 

True you have to have 1 million dollar system. That BS.

Like many others, I’ve been listening to music since the early sixties. I had one of those suitcase record players that I traded for a mismatched pair of tube amps. Then I found Halfler kits and there was no going back! I have bought, swapped and sold equipment for almost sixty years and buying music along the way. Having all the equipment in the world is meaningless without the music!

Can anyone else chime in with some of the more ridiculous qualifications people have come up with for calling oneself an "audiophile?"

a) A true audiophile shall only buy things from a guy who put something shoddy together in his garage (to provide true audiophile elusivity). When the shoddy does fall apart, garage guy will be long gone and the true audiophile will have a big paperweight.

b) A true audiophile shall know nothing about setup, acoustics, etc, focus only on optics and it will all sound like crap.

c) A true audiophile shall keep himself very tool/feature deprived in the name of purity and his cluster may sound ok with 3 audiophile recordings on repeat. Play anything else and the naked emperor will be in town full bloom.

d) When a true audiophile’s gear, his lack of common sense, etc keeps him in a state of constant disgruntlement, he shall blame everything on the cable (it’s all the cable’s fault) and keep buying wire for 10k, 20k, etc to fix all his problems.

etc, etc , etc

I could go further on the list and all the way to x, y, z, give you a sum total of 26 true audiophile qualifiers, but you get the idea..

If you say you are one, then you are one.

To me it is about getting the best sounding issue/pressing available of my favorite records without paying for the collector aspect to it. For others that are not among my top 50/100, making sure the pressing sounds very good.

I despise collectors - they purposely drive prices up. When the record manufacturers like Acoustic Sounds, Music Direct, Blue Note, Speakers Corner, etc. come out with reissues I am happy, When they overproduce them and I can get an overstock or great price especially from  a speculator who never opened it hoping for big investment gain, I am really happy (brand new Kind of Blue UHQR 45 for $120 for example a while back on eBay).