Should people with no turntable or reel to reel be considered audiophiles?

See there you go again, asking a goofy question. Vinyl vs digital vs reel to reel. I’m about the digital baby. My home theater would set you straight for sure.. wanna watch a movie. Ok, bring on the Cary audio 250 watt rms per channel 105 lb bad boy please. Love those 7 independent channels. Of course I don’t want to leave out the 20k I’ve spent on new and used Shunyata power cords and conditionIng. Love my Sigma Nr, now that’s a cord worth every penny. We also don’t want to leave out the 5400 simaudio Dac with hardware Mqa decoding or the hand built music server (I built that one since, you know, I like to do those things). Now I’ll give you some advise, no matter what you own, isolate the heck out of it and then do more isolating. I use mostly finite elemental slimline, cerapuc and ceraball. They are flat amazing. Oh and don’t forget the room treatments and bass traps and... you get the message. My ocd ass has been tweaking and buying and tweaking and more buying for years. Pretty much since the 80’s. My system plays movies as loud and ferocious as anyone can take. Thanks Audio physic and the sledgehammer Jbl fathom. 2 channel will always be my first love but since I can have both in the same system why not.  I must admit it would be fun to bring in a 10k vinyl rig to hear that side of things in my room but... no I hate the pops and clicks and if you were to ever hear my system you’d say why would you.  I think I qualify as an audiophile. 

But I will say they will be slightly different, but that’s an argument about distortion and a thousand other tiny little things, that add up to, better things. OCD is my friend.

Ocd every tiny, small aspect of your system too the point you’ve  gone slightly insane and your wife is about too kill you. Then do it again after a few years. Sell, sell, after buy, buy, buy. 20k later I can slow my pace. Holy smoke I think I’m done honey, I promise. Crap I feel...crap I can’t stop myself, oh no, I must buy again. One word crazy audiophile...

Let’s be civil please. I’m an audiophile because I say it, period. All digital source then amazing analog all the way too my kimber select 6063 speaker cables. Invest the same money either way and the result is spectacular. Neither one could be called superior, but...the debate continues.

Damn forget the comma.

It’s

Genez= very smart human.

That’s qualifies. Everyone who loves a nice reproduced sound is. As is every individual and his or her system. The act of obtaining and maintaining a playback system to hear amazing music qualifies you. 

 My life has been full of music since I was 5. That’s when I received for Christmas my first transistor radio and shortly after began piano lessons. Of course I’m a macho guy and transitioned to... you guessed it, the drums. For years and years I played along with the music and with a few lessons and I mean a few I taught myself to play. Middle school thru high school I was the band geek, plus the very competitive sports fanatic who also excelled at baseball. Unfortunately drumming ended for a while after a major left arm injury and I didn’t play again for 15 years. Once I could manage it I bought a Fender jazz deluxe and taught myself to play. Now I could play rush on my bass...well not really but I did learn to play ok even with my arm limitations. Years later I was able to build a kit most would envy and passed on the love of drumming to my son who had Neal talent. In 1986 I bought my first stereophile magazine and my life changed. Goodbye Radio shack, hello ocd, please help me become a audiophile. Please do not nullify this “audiophile“ with a lack understanding.

 Some of us have the means to upgrade and some upgrade when they can afford it. I’ve been in both camps...as the means provided I upgraded. I now have 2 systems. One is a home theater and the other is an almost as amazing, poor, left over, hard to sell montage of components that I decided not to sell because their resale value on audiogon wasn’t worth selling if I could have my “audiophile” habit upstairs also. I love how someone says I’m not a true “audiophile” because I upgrade every 5 or 6 years for the last 35. I’ve been to many a live event (saw Rush and the amazing Neal peart 48 times) Been to at least 500 plus live shows and I love that sound, but a PA system isn’t practical in a home environment, (goofy wife what does she know). The klipsch fortes I owned in the 80’s as well as my entire system (that took my poor ass years to built) is still in use by my x-wife to this day. Audiophiles come from every walk of life and what connects them is the music and it reproduction. Period.