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

Older vintage equipment even tho it sounds amazing is snubbed by the fake audiophiles as not high end enough or mediocre because it doesnt have 15-100k price tag on it and it isnt made by some no
name guy who works out his garage

An Audiophile is someone that is seeking to achieve a sonically accurate live music listening experience from a recorded medium.  This means that they are concerned with the way music is recorded, mixed, and transferred, the fidelity potential of the recorded medium, the capability of their equipment to process the recording, the ability of their speakers to replay convey the sound, and the setup of the listening environment to optimize the experience.

The success of the Audiophile in achieving this goal does NOT determine whether you can title yourself as an Audiophile.  It is the level of effort, learning, experimentation and seriousness you are about achieving the nirvana of an accurately reproduced listening experience.  Being a "successful" Audiophile is highly subjective - success should be measured by your level of satisfaction with your listening experience - success for you may be very different for me since my interpretation of live music experience may be very different from yours. 

The monetary status premise is a RedHerring - If I use my large bank account to hire an engineer to put in the best audio system money can buy and show me which buttons to push to make it play music -- does this make me an Audiophile?  I say NO. This makes me a music lover willing to spend as much as possible to get what someone tells me is the "best", but I'm not an Audiophile until I make the journey to understand how it all works and how to make it better.  

So - An Audiophile is NOT anyone who loves audio, even though all Audiophiles love audio

And, the bank account size of those who build their system by hand with used or hand me down equipment or those that spend the most to hire the best engineers using the latest equipment to realize their vision has no bearing on being an Audiophile.      

I'm routinely amazed at the super sounding low price gear coming from Schiit, NAD, Van Alstine, Elac, Zu, AudioEngine, Blue Jeans, Tekton, on and on. There's so many companies bringing excellent sound at working class prices, we should be grateful for that. Or at least give them a shot to earn your business. 

It seems like back in the day, 70s? 80s? Great sound was indeed expensive, but there's no way that still applies. Ergo, assembling a sweet sounding rig has never been more affordable. No need for the big bucks.