I notice some relevant autobiographies being entered here, and I never did do an "introduction" post in the other forum section, so I'll just add a bit of mine:
I grew up in a very musical family. My father was a jazz musician and led many bands, ultimately becoming a much loved and highly successful high school music teacher. He did all the charts for the bands and his concert and stage bands toured the country often winning many prizes.
Our house was filled with instruments - 3 pianos (four if you count an old 17th century model), drums, electric bass, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, keyboards, all the instruments my dad would play: trumpet, trombone, clarinet, alto/tenor sax, flute, and others. Everyone played music.
I played sax, piano, then added drums, guitar/bass, synth. My brother became a musician and his bands always practiced in the house.
It's incredibly the sheer volume of sound my mother regularly put up with, not to mention the neighbors! (Our neighbors actually told us numerous times they loved living near our house for all the music that was constantly emanating from our windows).
Anyway...I loved sound itself from an early age. I bought a tape recorder when I was in grade 7 or so, and used to just record interesting sounds.
Sometimes I'd just go out and record a walk around my neighborhood to listen to it as I went to sleep. Something about being able to re-experience some slice if time through capturing the sounds I heard was captivating to me.
I segued from drawing/painting/playing music to wanting to make movies, and ended up going to film school. Though I worked in various capacities in film, ultimately my path led me to doing sound editing/sound design for film and TV. That made sense given my life-long love of sound and recording. That's been my gig for the last 30 years. (And playing in a band off and on over that time).
My dad was something of an audiophile as well, and I'll never forget when he brought home Kef 105.2 speakers and Carver amps (including the preamp with Carvers "holographic" sound). I'd marvel at the imaging and richness of the sound and we were the envy of all our friends. Earth Wind And Fire sounded astounding in that set up. That's obviously where I got the bug and I retained my Dad's nice Technics turntable for years afterward. Once I started making enough money in the mid 90's I got in to high end audio big time, reading all the subjectivist mags, buying lots of equipment. But I always had a strong rational/empirical side and always took the more dubious or controversial audio claims with a big grain of salted skepticism. Along those lines, when i was offered a gig doing reviews for a fledgling on-line audio mag, I stuck to reviewing speakers and refused to review cables/amps/tweaks. My conscience wouldn't allow it ;-)
I've had a bad case of Tinnitus since the mid 90's (so much loud noise exposure growing up, playing in bands, concerts, etc), but worse was acquiring Hyperacusis - extreme sensitivity to sound, making every day sounds extra loud and painful - around 2000. That was soul-crushing for someone whose life and career revolved around sound. It gradually got better over time, thankfully. But a bad noise exposure last fall brought it crashing back, worse than ever, and boy has that been miserable. I've been undergoing a treatment that seems to be working well, and I'm almost back to normal at this point. And, generally, speaking, given I am working in sound all day long, doing shoot-ups, car crashes, monster attacks and what have you, by the end of the day my ears are not looking for more aggressive sound. That's one reason why I seek a more "organic, rich, relaxed" presentation in both my 2 channel and my own home theater sound.
I've been fascinated by "real vs reproduced" sound the whole time, and so I'm constantly comparing the two. Years ago I did recordings of familiar sounds - me playing my acoustic guitar, my kids practicing their sax/trombone, my family's voices, to do live vs reproduced comparisons on various speakers I've had through my place. (I'd also play them sometimes when auditioning speakers elsewhere). Lots of fun!
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