Hi jafant,
I became an audiophile before WWII, listening to Victor Red Seal 78s on my parents console using cactus needles. After WWII, I began building and assembling a series of systems, including using the Thiele Small parameters to construct my speaker cabinets. I transitioned from Heathkits to Scott, then quit assembling the components when I got hooked on Macintosh. I went from 78s to 45s to LPs, to reel-to-reel tape and finally to CDs.
I switched from tubes to solid state when the supply of KT88s became iffy in both quality and quantity. I'm a classical music nut, with more CDs than common sense. My current CD player is a Bryston BCD-3. My children and grandchildren are wondering why I don't switch to streaming - - but that's another story.