Are you an audiophile?

Yeah, head-fi.org forums are scary. Whenever I go there I feel a bit creeped out. I get the impression what people squabble about there is about as meaningful as splitting hairs. "Ohh Headphone X with its inferior muddiness is an insult to my ears, get Headphone Z instead." Of course, both X and Z are probably around $750 each. I simply can't imagine a small difference in a particular quality of the music can be so meaningful to somebody. So I'm not an audiophile.

But maybe I am an "enthusiast," or perhaps just a lowly "acolyte." I did buy a pair of Grado headphones, because I wanted to see if indeed more "elite" headphones could bring out more depth from my music since I listen to it A LOT while at home. I couldn't tell you where they excel in enhancing any particular quality, but I do hear a lot more detail in terms of extra things in the background I didn't hear with other headphones, and this is what I was looking to achieve. But as far as having an entire rig (player/phones/amp/modified pads/modified Altoid can container/whatever) for home/portable/work...no way. As for bitrates, I'm not one of those that can really tell the difference. 128kbps mp3s sound just as fine as the handful of 320kbps I have.

Jam it back in, in the dark.