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

Yes!
The Porsche analogy is a good one. As millercarbon stated early on amidst a rum-induced post, it is about the driving experience and listening experience. It doesn’t matter what Porsche or audio gear gets you to your own nirvana. 
Not being able to afford the ‘67 mechanical fuel injected 911 S my friend obtained in high school around 1980 (now worth 200k), I sought 7 years ago to purchase an ‘85-89 air cooled 911. After sitting in one however, my 6’4” large frame was not comfortable and I bought a 996 with an after market supercharger... what many would consider heretical. In the time I had it (the supercharger had issues), I was in heaven... and hope to own a 911 again someday when I retire.I also own Klipsch Heresys, and yes they too are fun and give me a thrill. 

Dear @looscannon : Me neither. I pasted general information.

The issue is that all the human beens ( but sokogear. ) have an ADC at our inner ears section, this is a binary condition. This is the way the brain takes any sound we hear.

The comunication in the brain starts with those discrete electric impulses and this condition is binary too. Now the neurotransmitters comes by a chemical " condition " and I’m not talking about.

Now and I take your word as a true one: if somewhere the communication goes analog then somewhere those binary impulses goes through a DAC or something similar because the brain information through the Axon is continuous.

The trouble with all those inside the brain is the very low overall knowledge levels that the bio-neurolog or scientific gentlemans have. The very high complexity of the brain operation makes that we can’t have absolute certainty in many operation subjects down there.

Look, if you read the article I linked on how our ears works where is really complex ( and are only the ears. ) we can understand the the brain is just out of our overall operation understanding and probably could be that the subjects the neurologes know about could be not exactly as the researchs showed.

The ears have not one but at least 3 different kind of transducers along:

""" We’ see that it’s literally crammed with equalisers and dynamic compressors, including a multi‑band one. It even includes an extremely efficient filter bank, as well as a highly sophisticated analogue‑to‑digital converter. ""

Now with all those kind of transducer in the ears/brain and all those eq., compresors/limiter and the like: what in reality are we listening from the original sound signal? example: how much information are we losting from the sound of the Niagara falls due to the whole ears/brain complex process?

Btw, I don't know other persons but I'm learning a lot on this specific subject. Good.

R.

It’s like an Alcoholic...You’re an Audiophile when you say you’re an Audiophile...lol

When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way, from your first cigarette til your last dying day. 🕺🏻