How did you get started?

Mwilson, I have every Iron Butterfly album. You should also check out the band "Captain Beyond". Several Iron Butterfly members joined that band after IB broke up. The Captain Beyond album with the 3D hologram cover is great, and "Sufficiently Breathless"(2nd album) is also very good. They are on the Capricorn label.
On the IB Metamorphosis album, "Soldier in our Town" is my favorite.

You guys and your Rock and Roll! I got the bug a few years ago when I was introduced to the music of Mozart. I was in Vienna on a holiday and a friend had access to the royal court. He was able to sneak me in for a recital the young man was doing. It was stunning. Such talent for a man his age.
He went on to bigger better and outrageous things but in those days we had to wait for months or years for something new. The small time theaters tried to reproduce his music but only left us wanting the real thing. Since the advent of recorded music things have become so simple most of you don't appreciate what us old timers had to suffer through.

"Peter and the Wolf" at about the age of seven. Then pop, then rock, now classical and jazz.

I had a cheap quadraphonic system when I was about 15. From there I went into mid-fi, two-channel with Carver, NAD, Rotel, and Altec-Lansing speaks. Even got into some esoteric stuff like Quatre and Phase Research, and reel to reel in my late teens, early twenties. Tried building my own, but it just never sounded right. Dual, Kenwood (audiophile series), JBL, Vandersteen......it wouldn't stop.

Then, a couple of years ago I went completely insane.....
Krell, Plinius, Quicksilver, Martin Logan, Dunlavy, Resolution Audio, Audio Aero. Yipes! Not to mention the changes in source materials.

And, the Home Theater stuff nearly broke me (of the audio habit, not financially).

I ought to be committed. In some states, it's probably against the law. Please, Help Me! I might buy again.

I was raised with music. Live (the Met, standing room every Saturday between ages 3&5) and at home (my faves were Peter and the Wolf and Porgy & Bess.) Played an instrument pretty well. My father had a Bozak-Mac-Fisher system. Showed me the ridges on lamp cord so you knew which side was which and didn't hook things up out of phase. When I was 15 I had my own rig. ElectroVoice, Eico amp, Gerrard. Evolution brought me to KLH 6s and AR3s. Electronics in that period swung between Dyna Stereo 70/PAS3 and Marantz Model 9 and pre with AR table. Segue to: Old Quads with a variety of amps from custom made OTLs to VTL triodes to krell KSA 80 to ARC Classic 30 with Sota table SME V arm and highish output (for moving coil) carts like EMT, Kiseki Rosedwood. The Quads morphed into a ProAc Response 3-ARC VT130 system. Presently I am getting excellent sound from Totem Mani-2s driven by Musical Fidelity M-250 mono blocks supplemented by a Triad sub-woofer. Front ends are Denon DP59L table with integrated dampened arm bearing a ClearAudio Veritas going into a Luxman LE-109 phono preamp (solid state) and an Adcom GFP 750 pre, (used in passive mode.) Digital: Sony 707ES (hardly the newest piece of gear around but very hard to beat.) Oh, and let us not forget the highly modified Kenwood
KT7500 for "free music." Music? Well, I no longer play an instrument pretty; well I do catch concerts (Mahler, Dylan, BB King). Catch some live jazz, usually at clubs. Was fortunate enough to have heard Ray Brown in Boston a year ago and had a date to hear him at Yoshi's in Berkeley. But he died. On the day he died I had enough Ray Brown on CD and vinyl to play for 12 hours straight and have plenty left over.

My first system included a Sansui tube receiver a Dual turnatable with a Shure catridge and Japanese no-name speakers. They were purchased in 1966 while I was still in the Navy. I have had MANY different systems since then, but my love of music motivated me to get into the hobby. The price tags keep getting bigger and the music keeps sounding better.