How long ago did you catch the bug?

1975. That was a long time ago now.

I think I had what is probably a common experience: I had been going along using commonplace Sears Roebuck level gear, thinking of hi-fi nuts as weirdos as suggested by Mad Magazine, until I listened to music at the house of a friend who had a decent sound system, which opened up my ears to how much better music can sound.

I remember going to those old chain stereo stores and they'd have all the chain stereo store brands with all the switches and the equalizers and the meters, and there'd be a handful of the higher end items that would be a black box and one dial, or something like that. 

my first exposure to high end was in a port angeles WA. stereo shop back in may of 1979, i was listening to an ordinary neil diamond LP being played through equipment whose name escapes me now, but it was high end stuff judging by the lack of price tags ["if you have to ask, you can't afford it"]. but the thing i noticed was the utter background silence and clean undistorted, detailed and full-bodied musical sound of the the LP compared to anything i'd heard up to that point [inner groove tracing distortion, groove roar, crackle and hiss]. it sounded to me just like a master tape but i knew it was not. i recall seeing a burwen declicker and noise reducer in the equipment stack. that scene planted in my mind the thought that some day i had to also have something similar. it took me 10 years to catch up with that. 

Junior high - probably 1976 - my friend Dan had his dad’s stereo. It wasn’t much but is was separates rather than the ubiquitous all-in-one systems everyone had at that time. He played The Who, Live at Leeds and I couldn’t believe how much more there was to the music. 
 

The next year my grandmother decided to give all of her 28(?) grandkids their inheritance - $1000. I caught a lot of crap for going straight out and blowing all of the $s on a stereo. Kenwood KA-701, Pioneer PL-17 ( w/ Audio Technica cart), and AR-14 speakers. The Kenwood is still going strong with my oldest son at grad school and my ARs are with my younger son in undergrad (the TT died). Funny part is that none of my siblings or cousins has any idea what they did with their inheritance but mine is still making beautiful music all these years later.