In my senior your of high school (1976-77). A friend kept taking me with him into the Sound and Music Co-op in Northampton, Massachusetts. He already had the bug (he went on to become a radio jock); and I soon caught the bug myself. Could not afford anything until my freshmen year of college.
As a point of history, the Sound and Music Co-op evolved and later named changes became "Sound and Music"; "Northampton Audio"; and now "Spearit Sound". So Richard Moulding and I go back 26 years (EEK !!!).