How old were you?
How old were you when you got the "hi-fi fever". When you knew that you wanted something better, than the local electronic store could offer, and how did it happen?
For me it happened when I was 17 I think (am 18 now) 
One of my good friends was on Hi-fi klubbens (the biggest hi-fi store in Denmark) homepage. I went to that page myself, and thought to myself "nice". I then visited the store with him, and there I heard the B&W 685's and I was hooked 
Andrew Everard:Around 15. Hotfooted it down to the local specialist shop, only to discover the gramophone handn't been invented yet...
Our 18 year-old friend will probably have to google gramophone.
I was about 15 too. I'd persuaded my gran to let me have the hifi in her cupboard that her late husband had bought in the 70s. It was a tuner/amp NAD unit with 100W and it ran very hot indeed. The speakers were large, three drive-unit Goodmans units that had loads of welly! I had to sneak my dad's Mission CDP from the cupboard to use it and managed to scrape enough pennies together to buy a Marantz CD67SE. The rest is history...
Man, then you guys have been into hi-fi the most of your lives 
igglebert:I had to sneak my dad's Mission CDP from the cupboard to use it ...
Taking Hifi Without Consent.
That's Thwocking!
Not really, jutht natural curiothity. It'th hardly thurprithing...
Andrew Everard:Not really, jutht natural curiothity. It'th hardly thurprithing...
Young Igglebert probably found thongs were more muthical with the Mithion.
it all started when i was young my father had a old record player
in the sixties he played his music often and he loved tenor singers,
he did not earn much in those days so was happy with his record player
i left school in1971 and went to college and one day went to the bookies about 1974
and won a lot of money then the bet was called the itv7 it came up me and my mate collected £1400,
it was a saturday and the bookie had to pay us by cheque so wee had to wait for it to clear
i then went and bought a sharp music centre it cost about £350 a lot of money then,
my father loved it so did i it was the bees knees to me at that time,
but that was it i was hooked on upgrading gave music centre to my dad it has cost
me a fortune over the years but i have some highs and some lows
i am now more content listening to music rather than wondering if the small changes you get while
upgrading are are worth the out lay for them,
the best piece of hifi ive bought are my rogers ls3/5a loudspeakers i paid £299 back in 1982
they still work pefectly still sound ace and sell for silly money on ebay.
not till my twenties in my case, which is a while ago now....
Bout 20 years ago when i was 15 i heard The Cure on a high end Onkyo system with Mission speakers that was located at my freinds house. I promptly started to save to replace my sony ghettoblaster. About a year later I had saved enogh for my own slightly lower-end Onkyo system that i kept upgrading.
1982, wanted to buy a turntable and was talked into auditioning (do what?). Had to wait 2 hours
for it to be set up. Sat on a comfy sofa with a coffee and was totally sucked into the sound.
Bought the turntable (Rega 2) and it's still going strong. The Monitor Audio floorstanders were
what set me on the costly and addictive road to audio heaven....all these years later I still can't
afford anything like that, but one day....one day!
igglebert:I was about 15 too. I'd persuaded my gran to let me have the hifi in her cupboard that her late husband had bought in the 70s. It was a tuner/amp NAD unit with 100W and it ran very hot indeed. The speakers were large, three drive-unit Goodmans units that had loads of welly! I had to sneak my dad's Mission CDP from the cupboard to use it and managed to scrape enough pennies together to buy a Marantz CD67SE. The rest is history...
I too was about 15 and went to visit Gran. We went to the big library in Leeds and I found that I could borrow albums. So I got The Who By Numbers, something by Pink Floyd and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Gran liked The Who and I was smitten by the sound of her Beocentre compared to my Dad's Sony. This was the mid 1970s.
...I should have mentioned, the reason I went knocking on my gran's door to ask for her hifi was the prior 15 years of listening to a superb Quad 405/33 and Revox system on some huge transmission line floorstanders (think PMC EB1 size). The windows rattled! It was great! When the Mission DAD3 was added it sounded rubbish!! It lost all the dynamics and drive.
Andrew Everard:Around 15. Hotfooted it down to the local specialist shop, only to discover the gramophone handn't been invented yet...
Know the feeling - Mr. Edison was the Becks of the day.
We had our first foreign holiday...dirigibles were wonderful. The Montgolfier Brothers certainly left their mark...
Andrew Everard:Around 15. Hotfooted it down to the local specialist shop, only to discover the gramophone handn't been invented yet...
I think the Klipschorn was around that time wasdn't it?
For me it was 19, I am older than 19 now.
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Around 15. Hotfooted it down to the local specialist shop, only to discover the gramophone handn't been invented yet...
Consulting Editor, What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision/whathifi.com Audio Editor, Gramophone