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What Does It Take to be an Audiophile?

What are the defining characteristics of an audiophile? The term gets used a lot, but there seem to be a lot of different meanings as it gets used and it often leaves me wondering exactly who is being referred to by the term. So, which of the following characteristics are most important and which are least (including irrelevant) with respect to being a card-carrying audiophile:

Amount of time per week (or month) spent listening to music.

Amount of time per week (or month) spent exclusively listening to music on a dedicated "high-end" system.

Cost of the person's system. Would this be as a ratio of yearly income, an absolute amount or some other measure?

An attained skill level at listening differentiation in the music recreation process.

Size of the person's software library.

Appreciation of certain forms of music. Is it possible to be an audiophile who listens to 90% classic rock and the rest heavy metal?

Attendance of live music performance.

Ability to play an instrument personally

Amount of time spent on equipment research and experimentation in the pursuit of better music recreation.

Amount of space dedicated to the pursuit of music recreation in the person's home.

I'm sure there are others - I'd love to hear them, as well as your opinions on which of the above are the most important, which are unimportant. There are many threads where I think a more common understanding of this term would aid the conversation. -Kirk

kthomas

Showing 2 responses by dekay

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dekay
5,349 posts
 
Ezmeralda: I just purchased 100+ MHS LP's (mint never played) today for $20 (which means that I have a long way to go:-).
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,349 posts
 
HiWaves: I ran across them in thrift shop (in the Valley North of Hollywood) that I happened into just a few minutes before closing. They usually charge $1 per album, and though it is a charity, I offered $50 for the entire collection, which was then agreed upon (most of their classical selection has been there for years untouched and these were new arrivals). The clerk had just closed out the credit card terminal and did not want to run my debit card, so asked how much cash I had on me (which was $21). She said "just give me the $20 and enjoy the music". The down side was/is that lifting the boxes into the car triggered a major migraine and we also do not have a turntable/phono preamp to play them with and it will be quite a while before I will be able to put this together. The upside is that they have all been stored with the paper liners inserted correctly and 98% of the jackets all have plastic sleeves. The ones that I have inspected so far all have the dust swirl patterns that I associate with fresh vinyl. I am not familiar with MHS (other than owning a few of their CD's) and just figured, at the time, that I would sell enough of them to recoup the $50 (now $20) and then see if I liked the rest when we add vinyl to the system. The majority of them are from a wide range of catalog numbers, mostly ranging from the 500's through the 4300's. Other than the price/cost, are these considered to be decent performances and recordings on a whole? From a scrap of paper that I found with the batch I suspect that the albums were once the property of a hotel and probably sat in a club room along with books that were never read.
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