How old were you when audio gear first caught your interest?

I was 10 years old in 1961 when me and my sister sold monogrammed Christmas cards door to door to suburban housewives for a company that advertised on the back of comic book covers.  Once we sold the requisite amount of cards we got a cardboard suitcase all in one record player in  the mail with a plastic tonearm and a ceramic needle.  One of my four brothers bought the Gary U.S, Bonds album Dance 'til A Quarter Of Three.  We were off and running.  My oldest John brother was in the Marines and he thought our beloved record player was ridiculous. He then bought a mono system consisting of a Shure cartridge, a Garrard record changer with a beautiful wood base, Dynaco preamp and power amp and a JansZen Z-400 speaker with an electrostatic tweeter speaker.  When I heard this system I was moved and In love with the audio hobby for the rest of my life.

Later when I was in the 8th grade I bought a Dual 1010 turntable from Radio Shack near Arch St. in Philadelphia to use with my brother Jerry's Philco tubed receiver and some single driver speakers that were thrown in with the purchase of the receiver.  The system had a wonderful sound.  This was my first "serious" audio component purchase.  The rest is history.

I was 8 or 9. I kinda inherited a mismatched pair of Singer(?) tube integrated mono amps my uncle had built from kits.  I built my first set of speakers shortly there after.  My mom had a turntable and a ton or records, so as long as it was symphony or show tunes I had plenty to listen to.

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@elliottbnewcombjr - Memories of the wild-side they left out of American Graffiti.

I was given a electronics kit, around age 8. I made a receiver and then also a transmitter.  It was all clip together, no soldering needed. Next, I bought small portable radio / cassette player, Sanyo maybe?  I hooked the headphone jack up to my Dad's Traynor speaker cabinet, and it worked! 2 12" woofers, bass ported.  No one thought it would work, but, surprise.  I had to make the headphone jack to 1/4" jack adapter.  HOOKED.. after that, I did a paper route and then saved up my money to buy the Telefunken M242 Reel to Reel, V250 integrated amp and T250 Tuner.  I still have the amp and tuner. I was 15 years old, with 1 of 250 special order units, likely the best Telefunken ever made.