What was the first piece of gear that got you hooked?

[GMichael]

I suspect this thread will generate a slew of interesting responses, all largely related to the individual poster's age.

I could state that my first piece of "gear' that got me hooked was my Emerson "Hi-Fi" that I bought with the Christmas tips I received in 1958 from delivering newspapers. It had a VM changer, with a flip-over ceramic stylus, two (!) six inch speakers, and (are you ready for this?) separate bass and treble controls, as opposed to the then common "tone" control! It sounded absolutely wonderful to me, and even impressed one of my school teachers who had a "Hi-Fi system" at home.

The real piece of audio "gear" that got me hooked, however, was the AR turntable. I had been using a Garrard AT-6 record changer which had annoyed me on two fronts: the spindle on which its automatic system all but blasted the record downward onto the platter was enlarging all the center holes of my albums, and causing them to wander side to side whenever I played them. More annoying though was the excessively high amount of rumble the idler wheel drive system generated. Considering that the no-name speakers I was using at the time most likely never even made it down to anything below 60Hz, to hear so much of it only proved to me how crummy the player actually was.

When I splurged and spent the $68 (less my 20% discount for working for Lafayette at the time), I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Using the same cartridge (a Pickering V/15 AT-1) as I did in the Garrard, the complete absence of rumble, and a clearly more stable speed brought all new life to all the records I had. Additionally, the table came with a rock-steady stylus pressure guage (which I still use to this day!), an "overhang" guage (I'd never even heard of the word, "overhang" before) and all adjustments required used the identical size screw, and AR even provided the screwdriver! Even more "thrilling," were the facts that you could actually smash the turntable plinth with a hammer, and the tonearm wouldn't even budge! You could also drop the tonearm and watch as it magically "floated" down to the record! I was definitely hooked, and that, my friends was in 1964.

In 1964 I was still spinning 78's on the crank up phonograph my grandmother left me. All were (are) in Italian.
It wasn't until my sister gave me her old hand held transistor radio in 1967 that I really started to enjoy music. The antenna was broken so I had a coat hanger jammed into it for reception. I used to listen to it under my blanket (to not wake anyone up) for hours after I should have been asleep each night. In 75 I moved up to a Panasonic AM/FM with a cassette player/recorder. The speaker was a whole 4 inches wide! This was great.

[Florian]

The biggest and most dramatic turn in my audio life was when i sold my THX_Ultra HT, (speakers and amps) and bought a 12year old Magnepan.

[JohnMichael]

A brand new Kenwood turntable with Shure cartridge and Smaller Advents powered by a friends gift of a used JVC receiver.

[Mike Anderson]

Magnepan MMG's. Heard those, and it was all over - I just knew immediately that I'd be spending a lot of money on the bigger better version!

[RGA]

Bryston 3B - Took it home and realized that my top of the line receiver was total crap. The speakers were 95db horns no less - a speaker that a receiver should have absolutely no problem powering...quality however is not just about watts. That day changed my view of the receiver and changed my opinion of the Wharfedales which I thought was the problem.

Then when I ran into a SET based system I realised that there was more to the iceberg than what sits above the water.