I remember walking into Stereo Exchange in the City when I was 14 and being in awe at all of the used gear they used to have in the racks along the front wall. It was audio nirvana. Everything you saw an ad about in the magazines was there in real life. A little while after that, my sis was dating a guy who was a hi fi salesman at Harmony House II on Amsterdam Avenue in NYC. He invited us over to hear his rig (a Sony tonearm and table that used a cake cover as a dust cover, Dalquist Speakers and can't remember the rest) and that was it. 1974
How long ago did you catch the bug?
My first inkling was about 1972 when a friend mentioned such things as Dual, Thorens, AR, Scott, etc. By '74-'75 I knew about all the Japanese manufacturers (courtesy of a military PX catalog) and about McIntosh. By '76 was using a hand me down all in one Panasonic compact system. The compact system did not last long and very shortly after, '77, came a "proper" 1970's system with such names as Pioneer, Kenwood, Shure, AR, Teac.