my first exposure to high end was in a port angeles WA. stereo shop back in may of 1979, i was listening to an ordinary neil diamond LP being played through equipment whose name escapes me now, but it was high end stuff judging by the lack of price tags ["if you have to ask, you can't afford it"]. but the thing i noticed was the utter background silence and clean undistorted, detailed and full-bodied musical sound of the the LP compared to anything i'd heard up to that point [inner groove tracing distortion, groove roar, crackle and hiss]. it sounded to me just like a master tape but i knew it was not. i recall seeing a burwen declicker and noise reducer in the equipment stack. that scene planted in my mind the thought that some day i had to also have something similar. it took me 10 years to catch up with that.
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.