At what price is one considered an Audiophile.

whart is Bill, he's got a great system, especially the turntable and power amps.

That's good, thank you, for being over $10k. But, yeah, it's very much about involvement. If I wasn't poor too...I don't want to think about it. But certainly, I could spend thousands of dollars on tube rolling only

You either like how your system sound to your EARS or you find aspects of how it impacts the signal path that you would like to correct by changing out certain components, tubes, streaming service/software, etc. in your system. How big your budget is you have to work with and what you are trying to achieve is important. For some, however, it is truly about impressing other people with how it looks or costs, but don’t confuse that sort of person with an audiophile. Those sorts of people are truly confused and misguided from an audiophile’s perspective.

Who is Bill @inna and I am over the $10 G threshold, 😅 $500K no way. 

It’s not a $$$’s spent thing.

It’s the pursuit of accurately reproducing music with sound equipment.

That accuracy, can be empirically based, or, emotionally based. Meaning, one can try to reproduce the sound of an acoustic guitar as it would sound in your room, or, try to reproduce that sound based on how you feel a guitar should sound, or perhaps how a guitar sounds in some important memory you have of a guitar.

Whatever the case, it’s about achieving a specific quality of music reproduction. If you want your music to sound a certain way, you need equipment for that.

Some listen to equipment, most listen to music. Everyone listening to recorded music, listen through equipment. 

I think it is more of an awareness of sound, equipment, market and a conversational interest in sound quality.  Cost is just what you think you can afford to spend.  An audiophile is aware of brands and those products that standout in their budget range without the fear of researching,  buying used with the idea of trading up if when a target product becomes available.  I guess that is the addition of the hobby.  Hopefully we all retain that this is about music and not equipment.  I hope this makes since! 

Oh, and forget about music, it's all noise. Listen to the sounds. That's audiophile.

OP, I suggest you not spend much or your system will sound better than any of ours, and we won't like that.

That's why you get so many nonsense responses. They are poor people with mid-fi stereos and questionable hearing. They are also idealistic and detached from reality.

$10k, no less. And if you want Bill to envy you that would be half a million or so.

one cents!

It all depends on the quality of musical reproduction and enjoyment an owner gets from their system.  Other people don't matter.  Dealers don't matter.  Reviewers don't matter.  It's all about personal enjoyment and satisfaction.  

Don't try to get satisfaction from others.  Get satisfaction for yourself from the music.

Not much. Just my asking price.

How long is a piece of string?

It's all relative.  Some gear out there I dream of owning, some Audiophile gatekeepers, call it "midfi."  While my humble system would be an audiophile system to regular folks or those that are just entering the hobby.  

You could have a $10k pair of speakers and someone with a $50k+ pair of speakers might call those speakers beginner or midfi.  

At what price?
That of your soul.

All the best,
Nonoise

It's a mindset. I was fiddling with a suitcase record player jacked into a musical instrument amp and PA speaker when I was a teen. I have progressed since then. 

There's a darker view of self-professed audiophiles for whom "source material" is meant to demonstrate the virtues of the system. That, to me, has nothing to do with music. 

I don't view this hobby as an exclusive club. The boundaries are limitless in terms of accumulated knowledge and know how. 

When your mate leaves and you don't even notice.

I know of this site, starts with an A where this subject has been debated so many times....

My actual modified active speakers ( 200 bucks of actual value ) are amazing but i optimized them, they were well reviewed but it was not enough for me at all right out of the box...

i disliked them for 12 years and never used them for music...😊😁

But having no other choices after selling my big house i used acoustics basic science to embed and modify them ... They are so good now i dont need a subwoofer even...

Upgrading them will be difficult around 1000 bucks...

And i dont want more anyway so good they became...

Then between 12 bucks and these there is a margin...

Cost matter less than basic knowledge...

While people are idealistically saying cost doesn’t matter, it is hard to be an audiophile with a $12 pair of Amazon Basics computer speakers.

While people are idealistically saying cost doesn't matter, it is hard to be an audiophile with a $12 pair of Amazon Basics computer speakers.

There is two kind of audiophiles...

The one who focus on gear measures ( objectivist) and those (subjectivist) who "taste" different brand names and dream about the highest price tag... The two group focus on gear components as tastes or as tools...In the first group, the objectivist hate to be called "audiophiles" and be confused with the subjectivists... 😁

The other kind  or second group as myself who focus on the best ratio highest sound quality / lowest price and the various ways of embeddings controls mechanically, electrically and acoustically and look for the  optimization of any component even using , what the objectivist   will call in a despising way as "tweaks"  or illusions or deceptive placebos, and the subjectivists will call in a despising way too  cheap stop-gaps...

Acoustics experiments matter more for me  than the price level qualified as high end, mid-fi, or low fi INDEPENDANTLY of any acoustic embedding optimization ...

The serious audiophile is able to solve the sound problem at low cost and begin to listen music without being bothered by sound anymore as i am  ...

The superficial audiophile never solve the sound problem as an acoustic problem to be faced , not only a problem about components synergy ,  but call his constant unsatisfaction a desire for "perfection" and enter in a race to the pit of expansive purchases, he  called them  "upgrades", without learning nor music genres and styles nor acoustics... Using his limited well recorded few albums collection as test ...

i Invested way more in music than in my very good system who cost me 700 bucks ,  modified headphones+ modified speakers... And trust me it is more than good... i dont need more...

@arafiq Shoot I spent $48.00 guess I got ripped off. 

It’s not about cost....it’s about passion, enthusiasm, and commitment for great audio gear and reproducing great sounding music in your living space.

$42

@designsfx best answer yet. 

Yeah it’s about the sound. It can be bare speakers hung in trees powered by a car deck. If you say, "wow, that sounds cool", that’s it.  That's audiophilia.  Some people don't notice or care as much or at all. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we do.  

In the current reality $10k is not much at all, so good sound is not very expensive.

Excellent sound is expensive. 

Money spent means nothing. I have heard systems that carry a price of many times what I’ve spent and I wasn’t impressed. As with life there will always be someone with more than you have. It’s easy to determine how far you can go or how much you can comfortably afford. The real key is focusing on the basics first- speaker placement, listening position and room treatments. Then work your way forward with the gear as your experience and budget allows. Anyone who thinks they are an “Audiophile” because they’ve spent a certain level of money is an “Audiophool”.

Cost may be irrelevant, in a sense, because it's a state of mind, but if you want a good sound, even if it is the first step, it will cost. $10k perhaps, one source, used equipment except cartridge. If your room is big it will be more. If you listen to large scale music it will be more. Well, for $5k it could be possible to find something listenable, but it would be below audiophile level.

It would depend on who is doing the 'considering'. I wouldn't worry about it too much and just enjoy yer tunes.... 

Enthusiasm and a commitment to striving for excellence. That’s the cost of admission.

Cost totally irrelevant...

I could put a junior enthusiast into a system that would let them cut their teeth for $1.5 to $2k.  Hard to get by much below that.

Jerry