Back when I was much younger I actually didn’t pay attention to music, until I started listening to what my brother would play and stayed attached, almost locked to very specific set of genres until I was a teenager when I started branching out toward Japanese math-rock, classical music, synth-wave video game osts, etc. when I found people to follow on many different platforms and find music I would have never heard or even come close to finding. I was only using some cheap headphones until about 2 years ago when moving up to corsair headsets but when I found Z Reviews and his charisma and straight-up salesman natural quality sold me on pursuing better equipment.
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TL;DR: Kpop.
In the beginning, I found I needed something better than speakers to play Doom and ‘Doom clones’ to get the most out of the games in a way that did not upset my mother with loud noises. Not necessarily gun noises since a certain game’s soundtrack featured NIN which really bugged my mother more than the gunshots.
Later, Counter Strike 1.3 and future iterations (but not source) took my life over and by now these games were called First Person Shooters…much like D&D and Magic the Gathering, they were feared to cause people to do violent acts or witchcraft! With this came the listening to rock, metal, and radio with whatever was on hand. This is also when I started getting into Jpop, because anime. Luckily these strange Japanese cartoons weren’t viewed to be as dangerous as D&D so I spent a lot of time as a high schooler going to the local college (shout out to Big Sushi) to get my anime fix and partake in LANs. I went through tons of headphones, but in late high school I found and remember the Bose TriPort which were what I wanted for competitive FPS and music.
Then came wanting quiet in college because dorm mates and so I upgraded to the QuietComfort2 set. This is also when I bought my first home theater system, the Athena 15373-4 Micra 6…and I still have those well over a decade later because I don’t watch TV on my TV anymore.
In the next 5 years from the TriPorts I was a Bose kind of guy. I was happy with them listening to less metal and more techno, house, progressive, trance, and the electro stuff. This is also when I got into Kpop, because a guy making internet fighting videos using popular characters from different franchises made a dance video and featured SNSD’s Gee…and I had to have more of that in my life! By the way, I miss Monty Oum and what RWBY could have been.
Some time after college, I couldn’t find a replacement from Bose that made me happy. I went on Amazon, having been a Prime member from pretty much the beginning to ‘abuse’ the free 2 day shipping of all the weeb and college stuff…but mostly weeb stuff back when being called a weeaboo was a huge insult…and purchased Westone 4 IEMs with a FiiO E17. What a difference!
After that I eventually upgraded to Westone UM Pro 30’s and along the way bought things like the Xonar Essence STX II sound card and Creative X7 external DAC/AMP.
Recently I felt it was time to go back to headphones. I loaded up the face tube you book and other inter web things to find reviews like Zeos. A week of research later, I pulled the trigger on Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro. I upgraded the DAC/AMP to the Monoprice Monolith THX AAA desktop-blah-blah, just call it the 788. Finally I can say I will be delayed in receiving the Massdrop Ether CX because either Massdrop dropping the ball or demand was much higher than Mrspeakers predicted.
Back to the question, I always liked music but after listening to Korn live (Sick and Twisted Tour, 2000 day 1 in Philly) I thought it would have been a fool’s errand to try to recreate that sound anywhere but that time, space, and location. If you could, then you probably end up deaf and arrested. I didn’t pursue really critically listening to music. Rather it was background noise that I liked. The Bose TriPorts changed what I wanted from equipment with FPS where treble is your only friend in CAL-open division. It was really only when I found Kpop and upgraded to Westone IEMs that I really began to critically listen to music as more than just a background noise. I revisited my past favorites and had a new appreciation for the music. That is how I got into this hobby.
I worked a side hustle at a telescope shop and the manager was also a bit of an audiophile as well as an opera singer (Vancouver Opera) and he introduced me to sound stage with his B&O Beolap 4’s, which I bought from him, then sold back after hearing the s9’s, which I still have. next door to the shop was a high end audio shop which is where I was exposed to the Stax SR-207’s. then it was over for me. I have those now, and the Kanto YU5 w/SUB8 as well as the HE-350’s & 4xx. I use my DragonFly Red w/JitterBug filter and working on getting the funds for a Schiit Stack…and save to grab the HD58x and HD6xx. if you haven’t noticed, I prefer open back…closed make me feel so claustrophobic!
also, I listen to music…not much for critique. I prefer it bringing me happiness and joy rather than being disappointed by the flaws and inabilities of the music or equipment. 
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John Darko describes himself as a “music first audiophile.” I think his description fits myself, your self-assessment, and the majority of those on this forum quite well.
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A pair of Phillips stereo headphones and a sound blaster live
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Recording is where it started. Then it just escalated quickly lol
Makes me happy to see another church sound guy here! I’ve been doing it almost 20 years, professionally since 2013. I didn’t get the HiFi bug until I had kids, because I started to wear headphones and etymotic earplugs at home because the little ones are so loud. 
Gotta keep my ears fresh for Sundays!
Started with M50x, and then it was all down (up?) hill from there when I started reading and watching reviews. Listening to high end gear has helped improve my mixes substantially. Very glad I got into this!
I got into this hobyy from a friend letting me listent o his 598’s while they didn’t impress me like in anyway for some reason I didn’t want to take them off. A couple of years after that I consulted him on headphones I had $75 CAD cash and he couldn’t find anything to reccomend me for that money and just gave out and extra $25 to get me the akg k240 and personally that’s where I got sucked it I still to this day thing it’s better than the 598. Don’t know why … Like I know objectively the 598 is better but I love the k240 something about it is warm and comfortable probably because it sounds warm and after a pad mod is super comfy. Since then I know have a nice dac and amp and a couple of headphones on the list and and bought a good amount more.
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My first interaction with the world of HiFi was in my brothers room when he built his own Leach Amp and a Pair of Visaton Alto III C speakers. That was in the ballpark of 10 years ago and I was too little to comprehend what the system had to offer so it took me a while to get started. My journey began somewhere about 3 years ago when I bought myself the first pair of good headphones (Sennheiser HD579). Soon after that I built my first headphone amplifier (TPA6120A2, Linear PSU, Alps pot, sexyass wooden enclosure). I was happy for a while but then I saw a pair of Revox 3100 vintage headphones in an pawn shop and had to buy them. Some say I overpaid them but when they hear what those headphones sound like they change their mind. Currently I am working on a few projects including a dac, two speaker amps, tube preamp and discrete opamps.
My music library is constantly expanding and has already grown to over 65GB of flac files. The latest addition is Dvorak’s 9th symphony.
This is my current HiFi system that I can use on daily basis as I live in a student dorm during the week
Oh and I should not have forgotten that I play a clarinet…wellllll I did.
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My Dad, He has always had home theater set ups and expensive TV’s all my life, and my mom has always hatted it and “tolerated” his hobby. The funny thing is it seems like he has lost interested in it, When I found Zeos’s videos a few years ago I got into headphones, when my dad saw all the headphones I started buying he gave me his massive 7.2 Klipsch system that was like $12,000 when he bought it new back in 2006, and that has gotten me back into the home theater stuff, He just doesn’t want to deal with all the wires and amps and speakers anymore he’s happy with his sonos bar and baller OLED TV which I find extremely amusing. The funny thing is I don’t really watch many movies nor do I like music that much, I hate going to live shows, I just love electronics and good sounding audio equipment, kind of weird when I think about it.
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@ZeosPantera always talks about the bowling ally with the crown amps that him and his dad did an install on.
Yep, I am a bit late now but I just want to share something. I got into this hobby is due to my dad who used to be a DJ back in the day and of course his constant music that is blasting in our home when I am like your typical cinnamon roll back in the day, made me get hooked around things involving audio. There was this time when I was looking up for some new headphones that was like crap and I did not know that it was crap, my dad was like “What the hell are you doing? don’t buy some stupid gaming headset (well right now I have the MH751 from Cooler Master which is more like a studio headphones that is used for gaming and some headsets from gaming are getting better nowadays.) instead buy some from Audio Technica.” that was that moment I got introduced to Audio Technica. I was back then trying to buy the M50x because I was like it looks cool and I have heard some good things about it, but thanks my to my dad instead of buying the M50xs he suggested me to buy the M40xs and damn he was right they are definitely better sound-wise also the fact that I was able to save up some money during that time is a damn plus. Well now, my M40x are broken now and I still miss it, I have to thank my dad for getting into this hobby to begin with and it is a damn good hobby.
You’re not late. I’m enjoying the stories. Thanks for keeping the thread active.
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No problem, I sure do love this hobby but there is a catch like always, this is a damn expensive one and dammit Zeos, every time he makes a video about on a particular personal audio that I am curious about or I am looking for, the money just flushes down the toilet but in a good way.
I grew up in a… not hifi really but retro tech head house. Dad has a bunch of old radios, lots of Ham equipment, CB radio, shortwave. A love of broadcast. And stations on the radio. That’s what got me into music
So over the years I just consumed as much music as possible. Different genres. Anything I could get my hands on. (edit: Was introduced to a lot of music through Film Soundtracks) But was always confused why the audio on my computer was such garbage. I realized that my headphones and the built in amp were crud especially wrt to clarity (I remember in 2010 the big thing was Grado with rich kids I knew because of the wood in the ear cups) Started looking up hifi stuff online, magazines and talking with more knowledgable friends and colleagues and soon realized that everything was way too dang expensive. I purchased the HD280 pros for school and they were the best thing I ever listened too and still currently do (looking to upgrade very soon). So basically I window shopped till I got a good job. I recently hit a certain milestone in that job and decided to get into hifi finally and here I am.
The person who made me get into this hobby was my ex, she loved everything about music and supporting her, we spent full evenings singing together so even though we finished she left me this amazing hobby.
I hope to resurrect this thread because it’s months old and there are likely lots of new people on this forum who haven’t seen it. Plus, I’m just genuinely curious what brought us all to here. So, to anyone who hasn’t yet responded, what got you into music and audio?
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I got into the hobby because of my audiophile best friend Steve. He is an audio engineer that freelances for gaming audio design and makes a ton of money…so he has the best gear. Listening to his gear had me interested. For my birthday, he gifted me his Questyle CMA400I, a pair of ATH-M40x, and a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 880 600 ohm. That was a big jump up from my Sennheiser HD558 and Schiit Stack (Modi 2 uber and Magni 2).
I’m also a musician, so music is something that is a huge part of my life. In addition to that, I’m a gamer and knew that I could do better than my Kingston Hyper-X Cloud II.
That was all the perfect storm to reel me in. 5 years and about 5K later, I dont have any regrets.
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I was looking for a pair of (ultra budget) ANC headphones. Like many, after a search you see those click farm sites that list “top 10 headphones for… X”. Then Google does it’s magic and start recommending headphone videos on YouTube. Started watching casual reviews like Jim’s Review Room, Unbox Therapy, HwC, LTT. Which ultimately lead to parody videos of the Zeos media empire.
After going through that process researching ANC headphones. Then I decided I wanted to replace my gaming headphones, and from there I have been on the perpetual audio equipment research cycle by making questionable purchasing decision, after questionable purchasing decision, when I should have just stopped after the 58x.
I probably went full circle as I would consider the 58x as the first purchase, and the 6xx as the most recent. Now I’m starting to purge some gear that I got in between.
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at the time the best headphones I’d heard where my sennheiser game ones, had some cursory audio knowledge enough to know i needed an amp/dac but didnt look into or invest to heavily in one (got a creative g5). I was tempted to the darkside of wireless and features by the arctis 7. The arctis were a massive downgrade in sound quality, fit, and comfort but the feature set was hard to beat. I lived in the arctis world for a few years and had been an active massdrop member in other communities for several years prior. I had always seen and been curious about the 6XX, knew enough to know sennheiser is a respected brand and it was modeled after a popular high end headphone. After a decent amount of reading and lurking on forums like this I ended up taking the leap and getting the 6XX and had planned to get an atom + d10 combo which didn’t pan out. Obviously the 6XX was a massive upgrade sound quality wise to what I had been using although i did find it lacking a bit in the bass region. After about a week of listening a really started to love the 6XX but with this love came a hunger to see what else is out there and here I am 5 headphones deep and no sign of stopping.
Side note I definitely made a bunch of mistakes both with setup and purchasing before I actually made an account here and started asking questions. If any lurkers are reading this I would highly suggest posting to get help from all the super nice people here.
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