My father bought his first hi-fi system when I was five years old. It consisted of an Akai amplifier, a pair of Yamaha speakers, a Dual gramophone and an Akai tape spool. The apparatus took up the entire side of a room but in 1973, it was state of the art. In this photograph, he is trying out the Akai headphones for the first time in our house in Bonn, Germany, where we lived at the time.

Father bought all of his records and spools in Germany too. In his music collection, there were dozens of gramophone records, a collection of Mendelssohn, Brahms (but no Mozart and Beethoven), various Engelbert Humperdinck hits, the Les Humphries Singers, Tom Jones, Beatles (A Collection of Beatles Oldies) and Frank Sinatra (Come Fly with Me). On those spools, he had selections by John Denver, Carpenters and Elton John that one of my cousins recorded for him.

When it became easier to buy music on tape during the late seventies, he splurged on a Panasonic tape deck. A flood of Abba and Bee Gees bootlegged music tapes followed. Years later, when I had my own hi-fi, I compared the two sound systems and I was surprised at the muffled and feeble sound that his system produced but when I think about that time now, all I remember is how much I did enjoy listening to music on it. It lifted me. It filled my mind with pure sound.

Now, 37 years after I took that photograph, I have my own pair of Bose speakers at home, a fancy amplifier and an ipod. I have bought pair after pair of headphones, from Sony, Grado, Bose - and now, a dainty little pair of aluminium earphones from Bang & Olufsen. The search for hi-fi equipment has its pleasures because it's a quest. It gives me a fix but it is a fleeing and momentary joy and it is usually followed by remorse. Basically, it's not the same anymore. I don't have a child’s concentration so the quality of the hi-fi makes no difference.

Sometimes though, for a fleeing moment, I do listen to music. I can hear every sound, every note as it is meant to be and then it it is the only thing I am doing. I am all ears again. My universe is music and I am a part of it. And sometimes the experience is so clear and so fresh that my eyes fill with tears. Then that passes too and I return to my own self once again, deaf to things.