As a young kid I was always into technology. The more buttons a gadget had the better. Around 1965 my brother-in-law bought one of those all in one wooden cabinet stereos on legs. I loved using that thing to play music. I’d sit right in the middle of it to hear stereo. Something I never could at home on our old table-top AM/FM radio.
From that point on I was hooked. Got an all-in-one stereo from Radio Shack in 1974 (with an 8-track recorder!) and never looked back, graduating to a "real" stereo with modest components when I got to college in 1980.
My brother-in-law got a reel-to-reel deck and that thing was amazing, but it was stolen in a house robbery, and he never replaced it.
Been loving music and its reproduction ever since those days on a variety of equipment. Just wish my ears were 20 years old again.
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.