What started you on your audiophile journey .

my parents were professional pianists.

my father had a decent stereo system (mono) and i was constantly exposed to live piano music.

i developed my interest in classical music while i was in elementary school.

i played in a hs band.

my first purchase was a magnavox phonograph, followed by a sony tape deck. i taped many concerts (live) from carnegie hall, the frick collection and the ny phil, whenever possible.

my first serious stereo system was in the 60's.

Nothing in particular. I just like music. I heavily regret not being a musician. I blame myself as being too lazy as a kid and having music teachers that were so boring and who didn't give a toss about kids. My mistake was getting to heavily into sports. I guess if I were a small skinny nerdy runt then it would have been a natural direction for me instead of sports. Currently, I am working hard to be able to play in a band one day.

Jack Roberts and Ken Askew, 1973...mesmerized by stacked Quad 57s while sitting in a doublewide outside of Waco listening and watching the inner and outer arcing lights during a thunder storm...spinning vinyl of course; I believe the first platter was the Al Kooper-Super Session album.

The first tape I remember playing over and over again was David Bowie's "Golden Years," a compilation. I was also really into the Police. This was around 1984-85, before I entered high school. Music was always a part of my psyche, I'd go to sleep with headphones on, I'd crank my Dad's old Credence vinyl to deafening levels. He was an electrical engineer and built his own speakers. I always had a decent cassette player and a backpack full of tapes, and I went to CD as soon as it came out, because it was so easy to get to my favorite song. I had that metal stalk with the spring platform connected to my front seat in my car, had to use that cassette with the wire that had the mini-plug on it to get the CD sound into the tape deck, remember those...?!?
My college roommate opened my eyes to hi-fi, he ran a pair of Paradigms with a Luxman integrated and a SonyES changer. I never knew music could sound so good. I'm still trying to upgrade the sound in my system, I'll never stop.

In my early childhood my folks had a Zenith console I used to play their 45's on. In my mid-teens I heard a set of JBL L100's a friend had powered by a Kenwood amp. Used to dream of Marantz separates.
Joined the military in the 70's and thought I had the best when I bought most of Pioneers top of the line stuff, along with a Teac A6300 RTR. Still a greenhorn.
Then I walked into Sound World many years later to pick up my amp (Marantz 1250 integrated) which was in for repair, and was placed in front of a $45K system which was comprised of CJ, Classe, and B&W. Was blown away. Thought that soundstage and imaging was all BS, just something the big spenders said to justify the cost. Now my system was garbage and the quest was on.