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

This'll probably stir up a fuss: audiophiles are music freaks who have developed a facility for listening to the sound character of the intervening electronic components--when they choose to.

@geoffkait 

>>>>I totally agree. The human bean brain works through impulses. Many audiophiles hear via impulses through the ears but separated In between by the vast emptiness of space.

Oh my I am still laughing 

this thread went from good to bad and back more times than usual.

Fred - there are plenty of audiophiles that are not music freaks - they should enjoy music at a minimum, but are on a never ending quest to get it to sound the best they can. Some are more fanatical than others and are willing to spend a higher % of their net worth to get there. Some self described Audiophiles don't invest the time to understand their components and how they work together and just throw tons of $$ at their system. A stereo salesman's dream customer = always changing and not spending any time learning about the technology and equipment, just spending $$. I don't consider them Audiophiles. Call them Audio snobs if you want.

Plenty of them are also hobbyists and enjoy playing around with their equipment, collecting lots of equipment and experimenting with different tweaks, often of questionable value.

The only question in any of these endeavors should be "Does the change make it sound better"? Not in theory, in reality. Another question for some is whether it is worth the change, considering the law of diminishing returns. Some don't care about that, but most do. What is the point at which "you're there"? That doesn't exist for Audiophiles, because you always need to maintain or replace the cartridge (sorry digital folks).

sokogear OP
Fred - there are plenty of audiophiles that are not music freaks - they should enjoy music at a minimum, but are on a never ending quest to get it to sound the best they can. Some are more fanatical than others and are willing to spend a higher % of their net worth to get there. Some self described Audiophiles don’t invest the time to understand their components and how they work together and just throw tons of $$ at their system. A stereo salesman’s dream customer = always changing and not spending any time learning about the technology and equipment, just spending $$. I don’t consider them Audiophiles. Call them Audio snobs if you want.

Plenty of them are also hobbyists and enjoy playing around with their equipment, collecting lots of equipment and experimenting with different tweaks, often of questionable value.

The only question in any of these endeavors should be "Does the change make it sound better"? Not in theory, in reality. Another question for some is whether it is worth the change, considering the law of diminishing returns. Some don’t care about that, but most do. What is the point at which "you’re there"? That doesn’t exist for Audiophiles, because you always need to maintain or replace the cartridge (sorry digital folks).

>>>>It’s getting easier to pick out the anti audiophiles and tweakaphobes these days. I’m guessing you must have taken a nationwide survey to obtain your information, yes? Pardon me for saying so but this is starting to look like a fishing expedition. 😬

When you control the mail you control ... information. - Newman

Alfred E.