Easy question! It's different things for different people. Personally, I've always found it odd or difficult to think of what we do as a "hobby", per se. For some, especially those like The Princess and the Pea, who just can't stop tinkering with their systems, I suppose it's more like a hobby. Regardless, the common thread, I think, is a powerful love of music. Some folks are content listening to tunes on a car radio, transistor radio, etc. and probably think audiophiles are nuts for spending the amounts of money we do on our sound systems. This doesn't mean they don't like music. They just don't care as much as we do about the quality of the reproduction of that music. I don't trust anyone who claims not to like music!
Audiophilia: Is it the pursuit of audio excellence or just a desire to tinker.
So my wife made this observation after I spent a couple hours fiddle farting with cables, connections and speaker placements. She said is this hobby/obsession your desire for audio excellence, or just you like tinkering with stuff, tweaking your system and feeding your OCD?
She said you try this and try that and guess what it all sound the same to me. She really knows me and my OCD.
Enjoy your Sunday.