How old are you?

31 in hexadecimal :-)

54 or is it 45, I forget.
First record player was white and orange with a carry handle, first album my brother bought me was best of BTO (so far).
At 16, bought my first stereo system from a friend. A Realistic receiver, realistic tape deck, realistic equalizer and Mach One speakers for $500.00

Cool thread.  I am 63.  I've  been a 2 channel guy since high school. Never had much money in my youth so I had to scrape my equipment together.  I finally made some money in the 80's and was able to cobble up some really cool (to me) systems.  Always changing amps, preamps, speakers and cables searching for the best sound that I could afford.  I got absorbed in critical listening.  

At one point I started a speaker business.  Let me tell you, there is a lot more in the design and construction of good speakers than you may think.  Needless to say that business did not gain any traction, but wow was it fun!

In the late 90's I got out of 2 channel completely and went to what I refer to as background music.  Sonos is a wonderful thing for background music.  I am retired now and thinking about getting back into 2 channel.  I have been studying this forum for the last 6 months and am blown away by the wealth of information available.  Thanks to all the contributors!  The other thing I noticed is that a lot of the gear I once owned is still out there giving music lovers loyal service. 

Probably more than you wanted to know, but as you can see I am getting quite excited.

Bob-

bobo2006 ...

• "I have been studying this forum for the last 6 months and am blown away by the wealth of information available."

Welcome to A'gon. Hanging around this site, and participating in it, is far, far better than trying to glean honest information from the various audio magazines. Finding them to be a big waste of time, and an unneeded expense, I no longer subscribe to any of them. As a bonus, you can make some good friends here. 

Frank

bobo2006, Welcome to the new Golden Age of audio. In the first one we had a lot of obvious stuff like better amps and speakers going on. In this one things are a lot more ephemeral, to the point it is hard to say or even sometimes understand what is going on.

In this one you can literally take all your old stuff and make it sound so much better than anyone back then could even dream of, and all by doing things hardly anyone back then could even imagine. Spring isolation platforms, little doo-dads called HFT, ECT and PHT, all kinds of wire and electric field control products, on and on.

Who ever would have dreamed you could significantly improve the sound by wiping a microscopic amount of goo around on a spade lug? Improve detail and presence with a tiny strip of tape? It is just nuts what we can do today, to the point Frank can sit in his trailer and hear music the envy of many cost no object systems and rooms.

You won’t be reading much about this in Stereophile. We are all over it here though! Welcome!