I came to the party a little late. In 1988, I had a friend in the USAF stationed in the UK. He came back on leave and I was showing him the 386 computer with EGA I was going to buy for $2500 and no audio. He had Amiga World magazine and told me to go see it. I was like Amiga what? I looked up a Commodore store in the phone book and drove there. When I walked in, they had the NewTek demo running with Kiki talking like Max Headroom. I was totally sold. I ordered a 2000HD on the spot with a 51MB HD, 2 MB RAM and a 1084S monitor for $2500.
I expanded with a CDTV and parnet for cdrom and a 250MB Quantum drive and SCSI II Oktagon card.
In 1994 after the demise of Commodore, the same friend found a used 4000/040 for $1600. I bought it off a college student and installed a Phase 5 MKII 060 which I still have.
I am still in awe when I show friends Octamed Amiganuts and other mods. They will say yeah, big deal, it plays mp3. Then I tell them oh no. These are not mp3 but played off the Amiga with sampling.
Everyone that plays Megaball, falls in love with it. Especially, my daughters.