ASK ME THIS QUESTION IN 20 YEARS.
Nobody in my family is into this stuff. None of my friends are either. I have a few aquaintenances that are into this hobby, but that is about it.
I first discovered stereo gear in the military, and spent whatever i could to get my system sounding good. It never reached the level of clarity i desired though.
When i got out of the military i went to this place in denver called SOUNDTRACK AUDIO, same thing as audio king and ultimate electronics.
What really facinated me was the room with Martin Logan, Sunfire, Krell, Adcom, and the like. I saw that shit and knew i wanted it. Even in thier crappy listening room it was far far superior to my system and had virtually none of the shortcomings.
I started reading every audio mag i could and checking manufacturer web sites.
Then i stumbled into AUDIOGON one day while doing a search about audio related. I was instantly hooked.
I also managed to piss off the entire audiogon community within a couple weeks. I thought i knew way more than i did, and i got offended when people told me i diddnt know what i was talking about, and i ran my mouth, and was basically chased away.
Couple months went by and i finally logged back on under a new name and tried again. I knew that there was alot of experience here, and that the advice i got could potentially save me from bad buying decisions, and save me thousands of dollars.
Then i lost my system, which sucked, but it was not well thought out and put together terribly. There were some good pieces of gear that i would still like to have though.
Im glad i came back on here though, because the level of experience that i suspected the audiogon community to have was only the surface, and over the past year i have become to realize how deep that experience and knowledge really runs, and how little i knew.
I still dont know a whole lot now, but if my experience then was a gram, i have a ten solid pounds of it now. Which aint much compared to the 50 metric tons that people like Sean and TWL, and Albert Porter have.
So like i said, Ask me this question again in 20 years, my responce will be
"When i stumbled across Audiogon"