Your first component that was "special"

70 or 71? Hope you got to see Seaver pitch. I did. He was a childhood hero. And #41 is the only player number the Mets have ever retired (of course, Jackie Robinson's number is retired throughout baseball). 

And the Mets lost another one tonight.This time to the Giants former Polo Ground  tenants.
Living in Manhattan my subway was underground.
Family moved to South Jersey and we had Trolly cars.
Now living in Arizona, if public transportation is needed your in BIG trouble.
Anyway Re: the subject at hand.Back in the day everything sounded good to me. And everything was in for service within 2 months of purchase (well maybe not everything ) An eye or ear opener for me was the DBX expander

ADS L980 loudspeakers.  They gave me a sense of what is possible in sound reproduction.  It was up to me to take it from there.

The first time I heard the Koss electrostatic earphones.....I couldn't believe recorded music could sound this good. (50 or so years ago)

For me it was the original AR-XA turntable along with a Dynaco SCA-35 integrated amp back in 1974.  I was using a pair of homemade speakers built by my older EE brother at the time.  Among speakers, after going through a number of ARs, Altec's, EPIs and such, it was getting a used pair of Spendor BC-1s which I acquired around 1993-4.  What a revelation - that magnificent midrange!  They stayed in my main system until about 2011.