Am I an Audiophile, a music lover-or both?

There are other hats. Here are two more.

-The diy / builder hat.

One that doesn't get mentioned much....

- The artist hat.

I believe there is Art in building and bringing systems into existence, especially if one has been at this for a long time.

And there is the Art of listening.

....aaand the art of spending!

Gosh, thanks for reminding me. I was unaware cheapness was an art.

I once started a thread on another forum titled.."Are you a music lover or an equipment lover?"  My goodness the responses got heated, most falling into the category of "without the music your equipment is worthless" to "without the equipment you'd have nothing to play it on". That said I've seen and read about many people who are simply  listening to their equipment and not the music.  I have fallen victim to this "Audiophillia Nervousa" disease myself on occasion and have thankfully gotten of that bandwagon.  I love primarily classic rock but was introduced to Jazz by music dealers demoing their wares to me and I'm grateful for that as I cherish late night listening sessions with that genre of music.  As much as I love music I readily admit that I love equipment even more, some of the mega buck stuff is downright droolworthy, most of which I'll never own. There is no reason you can't be both but one thing that is telling is very few of my friends have even decent sounding systems but when they are over my house spinning tunes what I hear most is "that's a great song!' but they rarely comment on the quality of the sound (maybe my system really sucks!), I guess most people fall into the category of music lover first