Average age of audiophiles

I will hit the big 5-0 later this year. Send CD's in lieu of flowers.

Dixie High Fidelity Wholesalers sold me my first component system. Anybody remember them? I still have the December 1970 mailorder invoice: Dual 1219 tt with base and dustcover; Shure M91e cartridge; Dynaco PAT4 and Stereo 120 kits; and one pair of Dynaco A25 speakers...$440 new in boxes plus $9.15 UPS.

In 30+ years I've upgraded everything about four times except ol' reliable, the 1219:

Dyna PAT4->SAE MkXXX->SAE P102->Forte F44->Threshold FET ten

Dyna 120->Hafler DH200->Threshold S/300II->Threshold S/350e

Dyna A25->BigAdvent->a/d/s L710->KEF Q90->ProAc Tab2000sig

I got SERIOUSLY bit by the bug a little over two years ago, at age 26. A good friend of mine invited me to the CEDIA convention in Indy, that was all she wrote. My friend introduced me to the owner of a speaker company called Roman Audio. I sat down and listened, really listened, for the first time. Since that time and about $15k later, I find myself always thinking about what to upgrade next or what new little tweak will put me over the top. I love it, but I think my wife is ready to kill me over it. Since I still consider myself new to high-end hifi, I don't know if I can quite consider myself a true audiophile yet.

Craig-Thank you for your kind words, I see what others do here and try to apply the same successful theories to my system usually with good results-what I am trying to say is I blame all of you regulars out there for my system sounding the way it does today. Thanks all!!
Tim

Average is tough to pinpoint. When I got into audio at the ripe age of 13 I brought the average down a fair bit, now that I'm 40 I guess I'm dragging the average up? I'm thrilled to see 20 year olds involved in the hobby, we need new blood to allow the relatively small high end audio industry to thrive. Fortunately I remain an emotional 15 year old, allowing me to go see/hear Ozzy on March 11th. Allllll Aboooarrrddddddddd HA HA HA HA!!!!!

I'm 23 now, but I wouldn't say I walk into shops and buy their most expensive gear. I started with high end probably about the age of 18. In just a few months, I'm out of college and in the real world where I can hopefully make real buy and better equipment than I have now. You 40 year olds that started not too long ago have an advantage in that most of you could usually afford to drop $3-4K on a system to begin with and build from there. I never had that chance, but I guess that's part of the fun, right?