No particular piece of gear. I only noticed that some gear just sounded better than others.
In audio stores I used to hang out with friends (with the same interests) at various audio stores. Impressed with everything from Klipsch to Maggies to, well nearly everything. Being poor, I started with a raw speaker and tiny mono tube amp from a junk pile sale at Lafayette ($5 each… ha!). Soon I “upgraded” the raw speaker by soldering a cap to a found “tweeter” (woo-hoo!”)
My first “real” system was a Kenwood integrated amp, a tiny pair of Advent speakers and a Dual TT with a Shure M91ED cart… from there it was off to the races!