How did you contract "Audiophilia"

I walked into Northridge Audio one day and heard someone playing a tenor sax in one of the listening rooms. Well, always being a jazz sax fan, I asked the guy behind the counter who the sax player was. He said, "oh, that's just the FM jazz station. He asked me to go in for a listen. What I found was a pair of Quad 57s, driven by Quad electronics including that little FM tuner they had. I couldn't leave, I was stuck in my seat for the entire afternoon. After I got into it years later, I was looking for a good preamp. I visited Randy Cooley's store in Santa Monica. I wanted to audition the first incarnation of the Audible Illusion preamp. If I remember correctly, it was $1100. I didn't care for it all that much. So .. Randy told me that he had this other preamp made by a company called Audio Research. It was $3500. I was astounded. I looked at Randy and said ... "who in their right mind would pay $3500 for a preamp?" He said with a smile ... "guys like you!" It's been downhill ever since.

Great story- Danoroo, I too am an Air Force guy.
here is my story;
In the Summer of 1986, I visited the local stereo-shop-in-the-mall. It was a nice store and in a large space for both big screen tv(s) (remember those?) and various electronics.

Anyway, The only "sound" room was in the back ot the operation. I never knew the exact dimensions of the space, but, I did learn about the new stack of gear from Yamaha.
CD player, pre-amp and power amp on a rack in a dim-lighted
room. This effect was to show off the red meters on the power amp and pre-amp. I do not recall the speakers nor the cabling involved. What I do recall w/o hesitation was the remarkable sound being produced via The Rolling Stones "Hot Rocks" CD.
At the time, I knew this release very well, indeed.
I was hooked and began my personal journey down the road to sonic nirvana.

Around '73 or '74 I walked into High Fidelity, Inc. in Austin and walked out with a Mac 2300 power amp for our band's PA. I had a pair of Advent speakers and then graduated to Mac ML1's and Mac preamps. I loved their "thump" for loud rock but was never sold on their overall "sound of reality" when it came to acoustic sounds, especially classical music. I fell away from audiophilia in the 80's and re-entered around the turn of the century. I can't speak for all brands but I like my newer stuff better, whether vinyl or digital format.

I'm an Air Force guy too!

But way before that, back in the early 70's when I was in high school, my Uncle Joe was a college professor who lived 200 miles north of us. I'd look forward to visiting all of my cousins and being able to go into his study ( the precursor to the man cave ) and listen to his album collection, especially "Demons and Wizards" and "Survival".

He had an AR turntable, a tubed receiver and Empire marble topped speakers. I had played in the grade school and high school bands, basically being around music all of my life since my mother played the piano. But from the first time I heard "The House of the Rising Sun" on the radio in the middle 60's, I've been a rocker.

When I went to college in the early 70's, Marantz, Sansui, Pioneer, AR, Advent, ESS Heil Motion Transformers and EPI were the big names in the stereo stores around campus.

I worked extra, and have had nice systems ever since.

@Tostadosunidos
Was High Fidelity, Inc. the store located on the corner of Guadalupe and 24th, adjacent to UT campus? There was a really nice hifi shop there but I can't remember it's name. There was also a high end audio dealer on I35 near 12th street or MLK. That shop had the very first JBL Paragon I ever saw.