Should people with no turntable or reel to reel be considered audiophiles?

No expensive cable, no Porsche. What a bum.

I do have a little blue Lotus Europa (Matchbox). I recently bought it. No kidding.

wolf_garcia,

"Regarding the qualification to be an audiophile, it seems to me all you need is the love of actively listening to great music through speakers or good headphones in stereo (or mono if that’s called for). That and at least one expensive cable."


I’d say so. A work colleague of mine, still in his 20s doesn’t care for separates at all. Yet he went out of his way to buy a top of the range HTC smartphone exclusively because of its sound quality which he believed was down to its superior DAC.

He also uses some highly reviewed in ear headphones.

He has also been considering a separate portable headphone amp, but I’ve never asked him about the cable.

Definitely an audiophile.

I guess Raul doesn't think "stupid" is a personal attack. I won't respond to any more personal attack posts.

I like discussions/arguments over bits & bytes versus continuous sound and I'll try one more analogy to see if you digital only guys get it.

By no means am I a watch expert, but I own one automatic watch and one quartz watch (for when the automatic is getting serviced every 7 years or so). Over the long haul (or weekly or monthly), the quartz is more accurate, lower maintenance, typically less expensive, etc. But here's the thing....time does not move in discrete seconds, it moves continuously, just like the seconds hand of an automatic watch. Turntables are automatic watches, CDs, or anything stored in a file are defined by individual 1s or 0s. Not continuous.

Before you throw up in a response, I voted YES, someone could be considered an audiophile if they don't own a turntable (forget the caveats).