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

My dad stepped up his stereo game around 1972 with the purchase of a Sony STR-6065 receiver, a Dual 1229 turntable and a pair of AR-3a's.   The immediate improvement in SQ was enough to get me interested in finding out what else was out there.  The store he frequented was very conservative and tilted towards east coast sound.  But I was fascinated by it all and was soon reading through all stereo mags of the day like Hi Fidelity and Stereo Review.   Still fascinated at seeing equipment from the 1970's and early 80's that wasn't available in my smallish town (Charleston, WV)

Dad had a pair of ADS 910's (still has them) paired with a McIntosh 2125 and C28. Yamaha Turntable, Nakamichi Deck. He had lots of friends into audio too. I remember Stuarts Audio in Westfield NJ had talks and I would go run around with the other kids that got dragged along lol.

My very first real job ~1977 while still in high school was as a part time salesman at the local Lafayette Radio. I was a kid in a candy store! Was running a $200 Sanyo Integrated system at home for several years prior. Soon I had all Lafayette/Criterion separates: integrated amp, tuner, phono, speakers with HEIL Air Motion Transformer.

Nearby shops sold Magneplanar, McIntosh, Klipsch and other goodies I saw and heard for the first time. 

Then on to college where I landed a similar gig at the local Tech Hifi and away we go....

My dad's mono system:  Rek-O-Cut turntable, Audax tonearm, GE pickup into a Bogen integrated tube amp into an early KLH 6.  I inherited the KLH 6.  It still works.  He once told me he auditioned early stereo and thought it was a gimmick created to sellore speakers!  Whenever my folks weren't home, I would put on some Led Zeppelin and crank it.

First heard hi-fi music at a basketball team celebration party at the home of our team sponsor in the mid-60's. He had a Fisher receiver and I don't remember the speakers. After hearing that clarity, I was off to the local hi-fi store in La Jolla, CA, and scraped enough together to buy a Fisher receiver. I couldn't afford speakers after that so I built some massive speakers out of 3/4" plywood and some 12" speakers (no tweeters or crossovers as I didn't know about that stuff). Still sounded awesome until 1975 in San Francisco I bought a pair of KEF speakers after hearing Fleetwood Mac's Rihannon in stereo. Been hooked ever since.