Your First System

My first system which I bought from a hifi store on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood the first week after enrolling in college consisted of an Onkyo TX-1500 mkii receiver (which I still have and other than a missing power button, works great!) that put out a whopping 17 watts per channel, a pair of Bose 301 speakers (how I envied the Navy ROTC guys who bought their Bose 901's in Japan at great discounts), an Akai tape deck, a Technics SL-Q2 turntable with an Audio Technica MM cartridge (couldn't afford a Shure V-15 Type IV back then), out of the box RCA interconnects and "honking big" (at that time LOL) Monster Cable speaker wires. I used this system up until 2005 when I finally focused my energies on upgrading to my present system. I'd ship that college system back and forth between Hawaii and Southern California and fortunately, never had any issues with the US Postal Service (I must have been born under a lucky star). Good times!

Nine years later, this thread is still going, because none of us who loves music forgets that first system...and the joys of getting it home and taking it out of its boxes. I have two "first" systems.....as a high school freshman in 1971, bought a super-cheapo from a company called "Soundesign:" it may have pumped out two channels of sound, but even to my very untrained teenage ears, it was lacking. (After I went to school, my brother and sister played it to death.) Fast forward to 1980, a fresh college graduate in Washington, DC... bought my first system from a stereo dealer long-gone: Myer-Emco. My receiver was a Toshiba SA-725; my speakers were a pair of Avid 102A's; my turntable, which lasted me for years, was a Yamaha YPB2....which came with a Signet TK3C cartridge. I'll never forget calling a cab, loading in the boxes, and taking it back to my DC apartment. When I finally got it all set up, I put on Rickie Lee Jones and thought I'd never heard anything sound so good. The whole thing cost me $750 dollars in 1980.

In the 33 years since, I've been through several changes of systems.....but still have that Rickie Lee Jones (now CD); it's my ritual.....it's the first album I put on whenever I have a major system upgrade. It's my tradition.

Jeff

1977..Large pair of walnut Advents..Sansui AU-7900 intergrated..75 watts into 8ohms..Dual 701 turntable with Shure V15 cartridge..

NAD 7020 with ESS speakers (2 way w/Heil transformer) Rotel turntable and Tandberg cassette deck...survived multiple moves and med school

Heathkit AR1500 that I built, original large Advent speakers, Dual turntable but I can't remember the model or the cartridge (probably a Shure). I lost it all when I got divorced, sad to say.