When did you start to love music and why?

Chipmunk records as a kid circa 1963.

Great thread! My mother was a pianist and vocalist- quite good at both. From my earliest memory I was daily in the presence of live music. Of course I'd give anything to hear that again.

Music was a major part of childhood. My father played guitar, my brother and mother played the piano. In fact, later in life my dad built a little recording studio on the garage so he would make music with my mom. My love affair started when my parent bought me a little RadioShack AM/FM radio when I was about 6 years old. I would spend hours listening to music in my bedroom. I remember spending countless Sundays listening to Casey Kasem's America's Top 40. Then my dad bought his first hifi system when I was in 6th grade. It was a Kenwood system with a turntable. Oh man, every chance I got I would play music on it, spinning a lot of my Dad's Beatles, Billy Joel, Santana records. In my teenage years I got more and more into car audio. No I wasnt one of those punks that played music from my car annoyingly loud with too much bass. I sought to build an audiohphile car audio system. This eventually consisted of Boston Acoustics separates, Pioneer head unit, Pioneer cd changer, JL Audio subwoofer, and a couple of Sony amps. Very nice sound. Fast forward through college, grad school, kids, house, divorce, etc...music remains a constant in my life. I have been fortunate enough to have the means to spend somewhat frivolously on this hobby/passion of mine. For that I am grateful. I hope my kids have the same love of music I have and find the same kind of joy, comfort, and respite in music that I have.

No one at home was "into" audio, except for the radio (2-in-1) that used to play for couple of hours each day. Started as a fascination for mini-audio systems from Kenwood, Pioneer, Sony, Technics etc when I was in school (7th grade maybe). This was mid-80s. We could not afford those systems at that point. I would occasionally hear such system at some "rich kid's" place. Then one day, I heard a Bose system at a dad's friend's place and that was the "best" music I ever heard. This was the tipping point - from "gadget" to "music". The "loudness" factor from the mini-system seems so crude compared to the actual music flowing through the Bose system(yeah bash me). Music was melodious on this system than anywhere else I had heard before. That started my audio journey. It took me years to get the first system. But till then I had a Sony Walkman with a good headphone set and made sure that I records my favorite music in the best possible resolution (Metal/Chrome Tapes).