Father was a vocalist, his grandfather a fiddler. Mother played piano despite being tone-deaf and hostile to rock, while her mother, the fun one, reminded people of Mae West and Lillian Russell, was a huge fan of Little Richard, Jerry Lee, Liberace, Elvis, anyone flamboyant really, plus early rock from Bill Halley forward. Bought me Platters, Drifters, British Invasion and much else. So I wasn't going off to college without an all-in-one record player. Then, soph year, I had a roommate with sophisticated tastes and as good a component system as you could find in a dorm suite: my introduction to audiophilia. Then another who would play Wagner at top volume through his Klipsches. Ever since I have always owned component systems within the limitations of space and budget. Finally, now in retirement in the streaming age, I have time to learn, to experiment, and to tweak pretty much indefinitely. This remains enjoyable even though my poor old badly abused ears are pretty well shot by now.
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.