Roots, a question for younger audiophiles, how did you start your journey?

Mid ‘10s: purchased Clearaudio Concept w/Maestro v2 cartridge. Knew nothing about audio at the time.

Ignorantly made vast improvement to source when I could’ve just gone to thrift store and found a good, working, vintage receiver for an infinitesimal fraction of the cost. Thus, a roller coaster of cartridge/tonearm-alignment-education, and multiple pursuits of improved front end and downstream pieces commenced.

I'm far from a young audiophile but it all started when I bought an AM/FM  table radio and tuned into the FM band.  I messed with the tuning dial until I stumbled upon the underground "pothead" station in Philadelphia.   The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" was playing. That was it, I put away my AM transistor radio.  I spent a year reading reviews by Julian Hirsch on Stereo Review. Then I went out and bought a Kenwood receiver (20 watts per side) that came with little RCA interconnects for a turntable, a pair of KLH 17 speakers (hooked up with lamp cord) and a Dual 1215 turntable (with a no-name,cartridge),  all brand new for $500 in 1972. I bought Cat Stevens'  "Tea for the Tillerman" , "Teaser and the Firecat"  and Judy Collins' "Judith".  It was bliss. I soon afterwards bought a Nakamichi 1000 cassette deck with Dolby B and C (new tech at the time).   Many years and dollars later brings me to the present time where I'm still spending and enjoying the music all along the way.

style, a good system in its day and would still be better than most of what people use today.  Kind of like a 1959 Ferrari is still a pretty good car. 

After collecting records for 20 years, and finding Needle Doctor on line as a source for my DJ decks, I caught the bug with a simple pair of Dali bookshelf speakers. Then, when looking for an upgraded source, I thought the amplifier should use pre-1960 tech since most of my music was pre-1960. I got a cheep yaqin EL34 tube amp and it all has been downhill - or uphill - from there. I still have the speakers and the amp and use them as backups during servicing.