The other day, I was talking to a coworker about music, specifically something he believes to be true (and I have not moved to confirm or debunk), that Disco was generally 132 beats per minute, in order to facilitate blending, because variable-speed turntables were hard to come by in the 70's. That lead to a discussion of turntables, including my mentioning that I still have and use one.
He asked me if I suspended mine from the ceiling by chains. That's when I realized that we had entered the audiophile twilight zone.
In my opinion, audiophiles come in a few of different categories: philosophical, technical, mythical and desperate. They aren't mutually exclusive.
The philosophical audiophile is one who looks at what is available, and starts lines of thought about what would lead to a different, better listening experience. They don't necessarily have good equipment, but they have an understanding of it, and can create amusing theoretical mental constructs of what would produce a better sound. Most of these constructs are, for some reason, impractical, and never get built.
The technical audiophile is essentially a scientist. He (and occasionally she) will measure, tweak, tune, and measure some more, never really trusting his ears. This audiophile will often take a measurement, and exclaim, "Aha! I knew that sounded off." The technical audiophile is not really upset by cheap gear, and is more inclined to work towards wringing the greatest performance out of what is available. Don't get me wrong, the technical audiophile will buy replacement gear, usually good gear, but rarely top-price gear, and will relish the moment of the first notes coming from it, but this is not his prime drive. Mythical and desperate audiophiles do not consider these people to be real audiophiles, as I will demonstrate in a moment.
The mythical audiophile is the one who keeps the premium cable manufacturers in business. They are set in their ways, and will throw huge sums of money to get a perceived improvement of only .0000000000001% in the sound quality. They are very succeptible to the placebo effect, really believing that a $120 SPDIF cable will sound better than a $7 one. They insist that vinyl records sound better than CDs, that the smallest difference in the length of the speaker cables is relevant, and that high-price premium speaker cables sound better than a pair of coathangers.
Finally, there is the desperate audiophile. The desperate audiophile will take any measure, regardless how ridiculous, costly or ugly, to improve the audio. Suspending a turntable from the ceiling by chains is one such example (a sufficicient vibration isolation can be had by putting a weight under the turntable). They build massive, room-sized subwoofers (okay, I'm good with that one) and use only tube amplifiers, which they leave switched on 24/7 lest the cooling and warming cycle change the sound of the tubes. ...which brings me back to my coworker. He made the blanket declaration, "Real audiophiles only use tubes." Well, this technical audiophile begs to differ.
Some folks have asked me if vinyl records sound better than CD, and the answer is both yes and no. As a technical, I look at the specs. Records reproduce higher frequencies than CD, but only if the turntable is in tip-top shape and the record is, also. They do so, however, at a cost of a higher noise floor, narrower dynamic range, and increased wow and flutter (CDs exhibit almost no wow or flutter). The record can produce better results than a CD, but the CD will produce more consistently excellent results.
How about tubes versus solid state? The big thing that tube amplifiers have over most solid state amplifiers is that they degrade much more gracefully. They degrade when either the tube is getting old (something that tubes do much sooner than transistors) or when they are being driven too hard. Seriously, if you can tell the difference, by listening, between a tube and a solid-state amplifier, then your amplifier is underpowered.
What's the bottom line? A friend of mine told me once what a stereo shop salesman told him, and it's perfectly true: you need to build a system that sounds good to you; nothing more, nothing less. If you are in one or more of the four classes of audiophiles, then you just pick a system accordingly.
I readily admit that the sound systems I have at home aren't perfect. I'm sometimes distracted by the lack of high-frequency response on one system, or the weak spot betwen the subwoofer and the satellite speakers on the other, but I'm generally happy. I've measured, tweaked and tuned, and I believe these two systems are doing the best they can, without getting ridiculous. Regardless, I enjoy listening to them for what they are, and that's what makes me an audiophile.