You know you have audiophile system when...

@simonmoon Agree it's just fine and right in line with what you've said.  Broken down into its Latin and Greek roots audiophile simply means a "lover of sound"--doesn't mean " lover of sound equipment"...Although reasonably good equipment is generally necessary to make that sound as close to live as possible, being an audiophile does not mean you must own high-end gear.

When you’ve run out of feasible rooms 

to put a 6th system in.. and your still

married. 
 

@simonmoon + 1

@simonmoon - I'm not sure that I agree with you that the majority of audiophiles are "music first" in their enjoyment.

I know way more people that enjoy music than enjoy audio equipment.  People that are truly music first seem to be able to equally enjoy music live, on the radio in the car, or over the speakers that grocery store equally.  In my experience, most of them don't even recognize the value of an high end system.  It's curious to me why so few people will listen to a system like mine and not immediately recognize how superior it is to anything that they have heard before, but even within the subset of those that do recognize and enjoy the difference almost none feel any need to get into high end gear.  My conclusion is that for the vast majority of people the actual sound quality of the music doesn't improve their listening experience in a meaningful way.

Obviously, audiophiles do greatly enjoy music or else they wouldn't invest so much of their time and resources in the hobby, but I think that if sound quality is a factor then the music itself is already taking a step back.

On a related note, I queued up some music for my wife last night that I know she enjoys and the end result was an Amazon search for a better quality recording.  It was an exceedingly poor recording that was unlistenable even for her. I was prepared to gut it out with the goal of her truly enjoying the music.  Even her music first approach to listening has its limits.  I wonder if I played it through my home theater receiver with some processing if it could be salvaged?

when you have at least an 8-figure net worth and a portfolio of blue chip stocks and bonds. when your system elicits oohs and ahs from whomever you deign worthy of showing it off to. when you listen to the worst recordings and it still gives you a palpable feeling of "being there."