Your first component that was "special"

@brettmcee, I lived in Burbank for years (over by the NBC studios. Have you eaten at Don Cuco's Mexican restaurant, right around the corner from Bob's Big Boy?), and found Tom Carione to be an excellent tech. He's at Brooks Berdan Ltd. in Monrovia, in the shop on Wednesday and Saturday. I too own both an Electron Kinetics Eagle 2A and Dahlquist LP-1, and would not hesitate to have him work on either.

I bought one of the first pairs of Infinity Servo Statiks from Woodland Stereo in the 1970’s. The crossover began to act up so I took it in to Walt Lewsadder, the owner of Woodland, who assured me that the folks at Infinity (Arnie Nudell) would repair it without cost. They had it for several months. I finally got tired of waiting. Walt offered to give me my money back, so I took it. Walt told me later that he took that pair home as his personal speakers. I think he regretted selling them in the first place. When they worked, they were amazing!

My cables! 

If I used  most of todays commercial offerings my system would sound mediocre.

Regards.

It’s kinda sad but the Ambience switch on my little Panasonic dual cassette deckback in the 80’s...  I was was fascinated and hooked!

...but after that, a pair of second or third hand JBL 4408’s. They just ‘jumped!’ when I played some Genesis (“No Reply”) through them. They led me to JBL 4312a’s which, when you set them up right, are wickedly 3D/holographic and just tons of fun on 60’s and 70’s rock. I knew I had been missing something when I was playing Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album and for the first time I could hear height in the reproduction! Couldn’t believe it.

My Dad had a Sansui CA 2000 and BA 2000 amp when I was young, I always wanted that combo.   When I was 15 I picked up a like new Sansui AU9900 integrated amp.   It replaced my JVC receiver and was the first real component I owned.   It served me well and I gave it to my brother when I got separates who still has it.