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

Nearly all of my equipment was inherited from an audio dealer friend who passed away in 1998.  I consider myself an audiophile since 1973. My inherited used equipment that I'm using now continues to blow away myfriends. Purchased new, this all component system would come in about $12K.  I'm ever grateful that my friend left this system to me, especially the Spacial Coherence preamp, of which there are only 400 hand built units.  It was $1200 new in 1979, and I just saw a used one for sale on a high end audio site for $1600. It blows away preamps costing many thousands more.  It's too bad that the cost of entering the audiophile market looks to be cost prohibitive, except for those with disposable income. I don't have a typical 'surround' system. My system is an 'ambient loop' system, with the rear set up to extract the ambience that is in all stereo recordings, but can't be extracted with a 2 speaker system. 5-1 systems might be able to extract the ambience, but it's still not the same as extracting the ambience that's already there in every stereo recording you own, waiting to be sent to your rear speakers set up in an ambient loop, using an old Dynaco Quadapter QD1. To be able to hear a singer take a breath as he or she steps up to the microphone, adds so much depth to the sound stage, it's incredible.  It be able to hear fretting is priceless, as it adds depth that normally cannot be heard. 

The premise is what drives quality headphone & headphone amplifier sales. The sticky (but most intriguing?) part of your premise is delineating the difference between a music lover & an audiophile, their intersection points & where & when they overlap. It almost becomes like theologians arguing the finer points of the higher good they’re trying to find evidence of. It’s there but tracing it back as purely as possible to its source is quite the exercise. i.e. Musicians often enough do not need great equipment as their love of the music transports them on even mediocre equipment. I didn’t say always but often enough. How much of that purity of love of music do we need or can we live without? Do we even want to and to what degree do we convince ourselves we’re trying? All of us rationalize this to a reasonable degree we tell ourselves - all while disproving the way someone else is going too far in ways we think we’re not. Both sides are inevitably right - but to what degree?

Sticky question worth investigating to the degree one believes the inner most truth really will set you free. The short hand for figuring it out is answering: Do you want the truth to be a certain way more then you want to passionately explore what it is - regardless of where that leads?
Please understand I’m not saying it’ll be necessarily be an uncomfortable answer - but at least a little of that is bound to creep in. Or not?

As many of you probably know, my principles are:

• Price is a poor predictor of performance.
  
• To your own ears be true

As a result, I have zero interest in seeing "high end" equated with megabucks. Not to mention, lots of audiophiles are apartment dwellers, or on modest incomes. They can get great sounding systems for their spaces on a budget and we should encourage them.

Best,
Erik

Agreed . . . it is the passion for the hobby that counts. If all that matters is financial credentials . . . it is only a pretentious title anyhow, and it certainly is not going to prevent anyone from participating. People do need to stop being triggered so easily and get a thicker skin -- who cares what a snob or a pretentious hack thinks in the first place?

Opinions, criticisms, and protests have always been an “understood” part of our culture and part of our laws until recently, and until recently, has always been respected. We all need to push back on the censorship and the control of those who think everyone has free speech . . . as long as it agrees with their particular ideology. Free speech must work both ways or it has been compromised and is no longer valid -- and in our society, the last free democratic society under a Republic on earth -- this is most important.

So, no matter what someone “thinks” or “expresses” with regard of calling yourself an Audiophile -- say it, wear it, and do it with pride . . . and tell those, who think otherwise -- to get a life and go read what freedom of speech truly means.

...but often the loud and/or the wealthy control the discussion. 

Being an Audiophile is a passion for perfecting personal sound reproduction.  

It is both a technical and artistic pursuit tailored to ones own preferences while still attending to some notion of ‘truth’.

There are no reference museums for historical pieces where anyone/everyone can go to hear precisely how a musician intended their music to sound. Even visiting Abbey Road and hearing Beatles original master tapes, things have changed over time...

It is the personal pursuit and investment in that pursuit that should be encouraged and RESPECTED.