As A Youngster, What Unit Puqued Your Interest In All This?

During my grade school days, my grandad had one of those console stereo units, with everything built-in.  Dad always had a nice Bogen receiver and a Garrard TT that I was allowed to use, along with my little 45 record player (for all those new Beatles releases). In high school, I had a cheapy all-in-one Symphonic unit that I loved to play albums on. I made constant trips to downtown Lexington’s Barney Miller’s tv/radio/record store to ogle the latest Marantz, McIntosh (and other) gear. Then, there was the local Fed. Employees store for the latest Pioneer, Sansui,(and other popular brands of the day) until I saved enough money to buy my first Marantz 2230. That 2230 was traded-in after college for a Phase Linear 400 Series II system, JVC QL-Y5F w/Grace F9E cart, and a pair of Marantz DS 940 tower speakers. When surround sound/home theaters and big screen tvs were all the rage, I set all the silver face stuff aside for decades. At this point in life, I enjoy searching and collecting alot of those old silver-faced gems from yesteryear that I could never afford when new. Ahhh....."old days, good times, I remember." :)

Very early 60's I had a Sony R to R. I taped the mic to my Sony FM radio and recorded as much music as I could. The start of it all..

My dad stepped up his stereo game around 1972 with the purchase of a Sony STR-6065 receiver, a Dual 1229 turntable and a pair of AR-3a's.   The immediate improvement in SQ was enough to get me interested in finding out what else was out there.  The store he frequented was very conservative and tilted towards east coast sound.  But I was fascinated by it all and was soon reading through all stereo mags of the day like Hi Fidelity and Stereo Review.   Still fascinated at seeing equipment from the 1970's and early 80's that wasn't available in my smallish town (Charleston, WV)

Dad had a pair of ADS 910's (still has them) paired with a McIntosh 2125 and C28. Yamaha Turntable, Nakamichi Deck. He had lots of friends into audio too. I remember Stuarts Audio in Westfield NJ had talks and I would go run around with the other kids that got dragged along lol.