I love music the most, but check a few of those boxes.

 

And that is the headphone system I used to travel with before I realized in noisy environments Bose Quiet Comfort noise cancelling headphones simply sounded more like music... and quieted the whole thing. 

This is just click bait and seems to be written from the perspective of someone who’s pretty clueless about high-end audio.  One can be both an audiophile and music lover, and with so much well-recorded music out there through Qobuz, Tidal, etc. there’s less reason than ever to be forced to listen to poor recordings.  I confess I don’t listen to Steely Dan’s (my favorite band) older stuff on my high-end stereo or headphone rigs because it sounds like it’s recorded — pretty poor at least as far as the digital recordings are concerned.  But I’m sure as hell not gonna dumb down my high-end systems to make that music more listenable because all the better recordings would suffer greatly, and that’s not even close to a fair trade off in my book.  If I want to enjoy music that’s recorded poorly I’ll listen on earbuds or a Bluetooth speaker and enjoy it just fine without having to wince at all the recording warts that become so obvious on a good system.  In any event, being an audiophile and a music lover is not mutually exclusive IMHO. 

Lots of BS in that article. And yes, I know that it is being done somewhat with tongue in cheek, but there are certainly a lot of people that take these mostly false stereotypes as being true. And they tend to use the term "audiophile" in a derogatory way.

It is based entirely on the premise, that being an audiophile is somehow inferior to being a music lover.

First of all, all that the term audiophile means, is a person who is enthusiastic about hi-fidelity sound reproduction.

Wouldn’t that describe everyone that owns home audio gear?

As far as using music to listen to one’s gear, as opposed to using one’s gear to listen to music, this is creating a false dichotomy.

For the vast majority of my listening time, I am ignoring my gear and am fully engrossed with the music.

But there are other times, maybe a couple of hours every couple of weeks, that I can have a hell of a lot of fun, only "using music to listen to my gear". I will play only "audiophile approved recordings" and only listen to how well my system is reproducing them.

So, for the 90%, or more time, I spend listening to the music without listening to the gear, am I a music lover and not an audiophile? And then, for those other times, I become an audiophile? Funny, I feel like the same person, during both types of listening sessions.

Of course not. I am always an audiophile, and I am always a music lover.

 

Yep, this is the clickbait junk we've come to expect from headphonesty. Sometimes they have a slightly interesting topic worthy of more discussion (e.g. KEF driver issues), but this one - nope. Who cares? Some of us enjoy music AND gear. That's why we're here. There's no inherent superiority in being a "more pure" music lover.

I am feeling pretty positive about myself.

I only answered "yes" to 8 out of 10 questions.

One day at a time.