Am I an Audiophile, a music lover-or both?

If you really love music, you revel in it even via a tiny handheld radio; or on a giant audiphile-approved system...or just the distant sound of a guitar or other instrument played well by someone.

On the other hand, listening to music through a high resolution system encourages all manner of sonic experience & brain learning. You still love music; but you've learned to love how it is reproduced via a good audio system.

Musicians talk about how different music sounds from different placed on the stage vs in audience, particularly in unamplified instrumental music. They, too, learn to hear various instruments differently, just a function of relative distance. So this is hardly anything new...

I no longer have a big living room system, as I once did. Now all my listening is on a mid-level desktop audio system. Most of my low-level listening (it's a home office; I listen while working) isn't even directly on axis (powered monitors are to right of my workstation). But it really doesn't matter. I love what I hear all day long. Then at night I get serious by facing the monitors (equilateral triangle) and turning up the volume (or I put on headphones). 

If you love music, you never love it less because of how its reproduced...

@desktopguy And if you really love your gear, you will make the best out of what you have, be it a portable radio, or a grand audiophile-approved system.  I have enjoyed music through every kind of device immaginable, and have always sought out the best possible sound in that device category.  I still have a Sony ICF-SW100S wide band pocket radio that I purchased new in college.  It still serves me will in my system now.

Hifiman5:

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony on DG.

@rvpiano  Thanks!

Listen to some small jazz combos.  You may become a jazz lover and simultaneously indulge you desires for the "slap of the drum snare. The crisp and clear sounding vocal, the quick and deep bass."