How did U get into this expensive hobby?

This is a cool story:

I was stationed in Japan on the USS Midway in the mid 1980s. My best friend at the time was a guy who was REALLY into audio gear. The navy exchange in yokosuka had a superb high-end audio department - Accuphase, Nakamichi, Denon, etc. Anyway, He had purchased quite alot of stuff already that was sitting in a storage unit on the base. I caught the bug from him and was planning on buying some gear at some point before my hitch ended. We were out to sea and someone in our division got a cassette tape in the mail that had some preacher telling about the evils of rock and roll and all the backwards messages that were in these songs. We all listened to the tape and it was interesting because he would play the section of the song forward and then backward and then we'd all get a good laugh. My buddy the audiophile really got freaked out by this. That night he pitched his 300+ cassettes over the side, came and woke me up and said, "you wanna buy all my audio gear?". To make a long story short, I ended up buying all of it from him for a bit less than what he paid at the exchange, which I later found out was more than HALF of what these items were retailing for in the states. All top of the line stuff that he hadn't ever even opened - including a Nakamichi Dragon, Denon Hi end seperates, a Teac X1000R open reel deck, Audio Technica ATH8 electrect headphones (2 sets), a Denon DP62L turntable and and 3 very nice moving-coil cartridges and a DBX 3BX dynamic range expander. It sat in the storage unit for about a year until I shipped back to the states - I shipped it all back with me and that's how I got into this hobby.

I still have the Teac, the headphones and the DBX unit. I sold the seperates, the Dragon and the turntable & cartridges many years later and actually MADE money on them! Pretty sweet!

The Navy Exchange! Brings back nice memories.

In 1971, my sister's boyfriend went to "Nam. I was the caretaker of his stereo. If I remember right, it was a Pioneer receiver and a Garrard turntable and some JBL speakers. In 1974, my brother-in-law (not the same as above)came back from Germany with a Pioneer Quadrophonic system. I still have about 6 SQ albums, including Dark Side of the Moon. If you have never heard quad Pink Floyd, you are missing out, even if it was not on a not very good system. During my college days, I was dumpster diving w/a 14 watt/channel Kenwood system. It was better than nothing. I had a trick set-up "three" channel sound. I hooked up a pair of speakers to the 1st connection and a single speaker to the second set of speaker jacks. By setting this up in a circular layout, it gave a very spacial sound. Moving on. When I graduated from college, I immediately started saving my money for a good stereo. Ended up w/Dahlquist DQ-10's and SAE electronics. A year or two later, I heard a Threshold, WOW!! I though. So over the last 20+ years I've upgraded equipment as I could find money (wife and kids put a big bite in the stereo funds) to where I'm pretty happy with my system. The best part is my daughter is a confirmed audiofile having grown up with good equipment. I've willed the stereo to her.

Just who decided that this hobby is expensive? Value for money, it is dirt cheap! The only thing to compare would be a 12 cylinder Ferrari F1 engine at full revs. in my living room...actually 2 of them would give a fine stereo effect. And THAT would be much more expensive!

Stereo, even your bog-standard Rolls is more expensive, let alone twο Ferraris. Surely, this is one the cheapest expensive hobbies around. Think about the cost of Formula 1, of a polo team, etc... $15K for a pre-amp (power cord included), $30K for power (power cord included): geez, you can't get a decent 6litre Merc for that kind of money.
Dirt cheap, I say! ;-)