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I was 9 years old and heard the bass coming from some home made "Heath Kit" design sub-woofers and I was overwhelmed and wanted that sound in my room. I have remained a bass-head.

i think any first experience as a child is is seldom remembered.its just too nebulous.

My dad's McinTosh Tube gear and Bozak Speakers.

Though I was just a little kid back in the 70's, I do recall near constant exposure to a wide variety of music such as Elvis Presley, Charlie Pride, Bing Crosby, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Kenny Rogers via my parents. And from my older siblings I heard lots of Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Heart, Boston, Ted Nugent, Kiss, REO Speedwagon, Rush, Aerosmith, Kansas, Supertramp, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, CCR, Lynard Skynard, and more. Oddly enough I now listen to heavy metal and girls with guitars. But I also like some electronica and the Chicago funk scene. The latter gets me out of my apartment to dance. That's another thing. My mom often danced with me when I was younger, which I think helped my appreciation of music.

Listening to music and dancing with my parents at age four on pop's big ol' Pioneer receiver and crappy little turntable. Nothing but laughs and smiles and it got me out of cleaning my room. Never forget it. Has nothing to do with the playback quality. It's what music is all about. My stereo slowly approaches the cost of my automobile, but I don't think any amount of money can take you back to those days.

My parent bought me a record player and I was allowed to play my records at age three. My Dad thought I could read because I found differences in the labels and could pick songs on request.

It happened at the hi-fi corner of a mass merchandiser. My parents were shopping for a console. We found one that matched our decor, and the salesman played it for us. He turned up the volume, and I was impressed by its loudness.

1976. Evansville, Indiana. Even in cities that small boutique audio was flourishing back then. Walked in to a small shop and heard Maggies paired with NAD. I was dazzled and dizzyed.

I was three or four years old, and I couldn

When I was a kid (late '50s, early '60s) we lived in Japan. My dad bought an Akai open-reel tape deck, back when they were hand-built copies of Ampex decks. He played a lot of classical music, which I loved. But it was the opening to Esquivel's Strings Aflame album that hooked me on great sound. I still remember how that sounded. I have a clean LP copy, but it isn't the same as open-reel tape.

I was a sophomore in the high school choir. The choir director would play records occasionally on the school audio system that he chose himself: KLH 6 speakers, AR integrated amp, a belt-drive Fairchild turntable and a Shure V-15 cartridge. That choir director was responsible for my life-long interest in both classical music and quality audio components.

1951 in Duluth, Minnesota, my Mom bought me my own 78 record player. My favorite was Mighty Mouse singing "Here I Come to Save the Day." I was four and never got into cactus needles, just steel.

I was born in a house that contained my father's record shop. I do have vivid memories, particularly of live music from my first few years but as I heard records playing constantly I cannot recall the first experience.

Gene Autry sings "Champion the Wonderhorse" on Little Golden Records. I played them until my friends couldn't stand me anymore.

Even though my hi-fi hobby started earlier, my first eye-and-mind-opening hi-fi experience happened in 1985, in Tsingtao, China. There was the enormous industry trade show coming from Bavaria Germany, which was our sister province, and I was working there as an interpreter. (It was also the first time that I had the chance to taste Coca Cola, I still prefer water to anything else.) It was the first time that I saw and listened to CD players, rack music systems, and rack mounted hi-fi systems, including the names like STUDER and REVOX. The participating manufactures were from Germany, but some of their Hong Kong dealers also attended. I remember listening to

My first true audio impression occurred in the late 1960s; I must have been about 16 years old. The dealer is long since out of business, but I remember walking in and hearing Gordon Lightfoot singing "The Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle". Although I don't remember the specific models, I remember the demo system consisted of McIntosh tube electronics, Accoustic Research speakers, and an Acoustic Research turntable with a Shure cartridge. It was the first truly moving listening experience I had, and it marked the beginning of a lifetime of listening enjoyment for me.

Feshman year in high school - friend had a blazer with 2 Orion 15s and a 1200 watt Orion amp - listening to Love Is Blindness from U2's Achtung Baby

Early sixties. I knew my parents had scrimped on our Zenith when I heard my Uncle Walter's new console stereo. Can't remember the brand, Fisher maybe, but it had much better treble and a well-defined, slightly bloated, bass that put Bing Crosby "in the basement" as my uncle used to say when Der Bingle hit the low notes on "White Christmas." Ours was all midrange and muddy at that. It even looked cheap. I knew that we could do better, and it's been uphill all the way since then. I guess it's a curse we're born with.

I don't remember a specific event, but Dad had a Marantz 2220B receiver and matching tape deck with the shiny brushed aluminum faces and fancy lights, dials, and meters. The speakers, which still work today, were Lafayette Criterions. As a little kid, I thought it was THE stereo system, and I loved hearing his oldies music that he had converted to cassette from a friend's mint condition LPs. Now that I have reached an audiophile level myself in 2-channel audio, I hope I will inspire my future children in the same way.

When I was very young, 4 or 5 years old my father had a McIntosch system, Dual Direct drive turntable system and early Polk Audio RT speakers. I remember the green glow from the receiver.

Back when I was in high school in the mid 70's, my father wanted to get a stereo, and asked me to do the research. I took this responsibility very seriously, and spent a lot of time in Tech Hifi, Atlantis Sound, etc. The total system price was supposed to be in the $800-1200 range. Of all of the stuff I auditioned, the Acoustic Research speakers were my favorites. Macy's also carried them at the time, and I spent a lot of time there, since the salesmen left me alone, probably figuring that a teenager wouldn't be buying anything by himself. My father never got around to getting the system, always grumbling about needing money for things like college tution. But I was hooked, and scraped together $425 for my starter system a few years later. Needlees to say, my system has come along ways since then.

Mac C26, Mac 2105, Klipsch corner horns, Thorens turntable at Hi Fi Hutch in Mt. Prospect, Illinois.

I was 13 years old when my dad and I passed a place called Cal Stereo in the Los Angeles area, and we decided to stop in. We looked at many different components, but my dad was unwilling (rightly so) to pay a lot of money for my bedroom system. After listening to many pieces of equipment, we decided on a Superscope receiver, a Gerrard turntable (which I still have), and a pair of KLH speakers. I was elated that my dad afforded me the opportunity to experience sound in my own bedroom. After hooking up all of the components, I was in sheer aural ecstacy! I had never heard sound like that before. Zeppelin and Deep Purple were raw and bassy. Even though my mom (a formally trained concert pianist) constantly asked me to turn down the bass (which I kept at the 5 o'clock position, as I did the treble) with the loudness switched to the "on" position, it was a magical experience for me, and one that I shall never forget. Life goes in cycles. My own kids are asking me for stereo equipment for their rooms. If only I could tolerate The Backstreet Boys, INSYNC, and Ms. Spears . . . .

My best friend had a Harmon Kardon 40 watt receiver, Quadraflex speakers and a flat laying Pioneer cassette player. I had never heard "real" components before (I was 13) and it blew me away when he played REO "Riding the storm out" live.

My sister and I were in the back seat of a 1964 Studebaker. It was 1966 and my parents had taken us to a local drive-in theater to see A Hard Days Night. The sound came through a small speaker that was jammed in the window. It was one of the best musical experiences of my life. The sonics couldn't have been any good, so it must have been the music.

Mid-fifties on my folks' big two-cabinet RCA stereo hi-fi, listening to Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, the cast album of South Pacific, George Shearing, Montovoni, and Tennessee Ernie Ford. I was captivated as a small boy.

My first audio experience came when I was around five-years-old, the year was 1969. My mom had this Magnovox all-in-one AM-FM, phonograph unit with buit-in speakers. It was a tube design, I can remember seeing the tubes glowing though the sloted sides, I can even remember it having a distinctive smell to it when you lifted up the wooden top to place records in it. I loved it. When you turned it off it would still play for several seconds longer until the tubes cooled down. As I got older I have used solid state gear, however I just purchased a Cary integrated SLI-80 signature amp, it has a glorious sound to it, and looking at those tubes really bring back memories.

My father brought me to a Who concert in New York, I just remember the power of the audience and the music as being overwhelming and a bit frightening. It is the power of the music that stuck with me.

A friend's dad died Xmas Day 1966 of a massive heart attack! With the insurance money, they got an RCA console, which made Star Trek come alive in color & hi-fi sound! But the kicker was my bud,all of 13, gettin' a Phase Linear pre-amp & amp,AR turntable with Shure top-line cartridge,& AR 3 speakers!Hendrix, even though he was several million miles away, was, at the same time, right there between those speaker frames! Several years later he traded it all for a Sherwood receiver & Dual turntable with Ortofon cartridge!That sixties sonic journey might be easier to replicate today, but it'll never compare to those hallowed initiation sessions of nearly four decades past!

Yes. ca. 1959 when my dad recorded me singing with his Ampex tape machine. I listened to the whole thing shortly thereafter on his "Brush" headphones.