As far as gear goes, it was either the used pair of Aragon Palladium II’s I picked up, or the moment I switched to a Dynavector 10x5 Mk II cart.
Additionally, I was of age when CD players first came onto the market, and I remember playing my first CD and marveling at the clarity, the punchiness, the lack of noise and the ability to immediately scan to other tracks. I remember hearing my first SACD, and my first recording at 24-bit depth instead of using 16bit ADATs.
I remember the first time I played through a proper DAC as opposed to a crappy consumer-grade one (I even remember the DAC; it was an old Universal Audio 2-192), or when I switched from mixing through old Digidesign 888 units to an Apogee AD8000SE... I remember the enormity of the piano tracks that suddenly sounded real, and marveling at how the hell I could have tolerated the muted, dull sound I was getting on the poorer 888 units.
the gateway product that turned you into an audiophile
@foggyus91 suggested/pushed/encouraged me to start a thread about this. It was related to Darko's post about 12 audiophile misconceptions. One was that we are all about music - vs gear. I think that subject has been chewed up already a 100 times. I am not sure anyone has anything new to say.
However, that made me think about the day I turned into an audiophile.
It was when I bought my first "gateway" product that was affordable but audiophile quality and led me to explore more and tweak and switch and experiment and never be fully content but always be smiling when I turned the power on. It's been about the sound and not the music and that's fine. But I realize now that those Monitor Audio speakers I bought from craigslist were my gateway drug 
Were you always an audiophile or was there such a moment and a piece of hardware that made the difference?
(Lastly, I am very uneasy and on the fence about this forum and starting a thread - for my last correspondence with the moderators. What I learned should bother anyone who cares about fairness or even the appearance of it. I can't discuss it because it will get removed - I tried, my comment lived for less than 5 minutes, )