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

My Uncles Dual 1219/ELAC Cartridge/Grundig Receiver/UHER Reel to Reel/Canadian Knockoff JBL L100's (ADS ?).

My Dad's German Koronette Cherry Wood Stereo Console with built-in Bar. BSR Ceramic Cart/Some Transistor big huge receiver. Dual knobs for Volume. 

My mother played classical piano and my dad played blues Coronet. We had some sort of system that played vinyl 78's a lot.

I watched my dad build his own speaker cabinets for his speakers.  And in my teens I bought my own fisher component system cause once again my dad had a fisher tube rack system that I remember could heat a room!  But everything sounded so deep, rich and detailed.  

One of my best friends in grade school introduced me to his parents' ARXa, PAS-3, Stereo 70, and AR3a speakers.  That inspired me to buy kit amps and such from Lafayette and Allied.  Later worked in an electronics store.  Now I have a lot of the gear from that era that I couldn't afford at the time.  

When I was 14, I saved up all the money I made working in the back room of my uncles liquor store sorting return bottles and bought a Panasonic compact stereo system with a built in cassette recorder, BSR turntable, am/fm tuner and speakers for around $200.00. When I turned 16 and started working at Burger Chef and was making better money, I sold my Panasonic to a co-worker and bought my first real stereo system.  It was a 20wpc Sansui receiver, Sony Dolby Cassette Deck, Garrard turntable with a Shure M91ED cartridge and a pair of Bozak bookshelf speakers.  2 years later I started working in that store that would last another 15 years.  I was constantly buying better equipment.  The disease never left me.