What were some of your early Hi-End audio gear/influences?

When I graduated High School in June 1971, most of my friends bought motorcycles with their graduation money.  I didn't, I bought a Sansui 30wpc receiver, Rectilinear 1a speakers, Garrard turntable with a Shure MM cartridge, and a Sony Dolby B cassette recorder.  This was Sony's first Dolby B   cassette deck.  Since then I have spent way upwards of 6 figures on my audio addiction spanning 50 years.  Thankfully, I am extremely happy now and do not have any desire to do any major changes.  I may still futz with interconnects a bit but that is only  if I see a real good deal here.

My first musical sounding system featured Large Advents, which seems to come up a bit here.  I had them from late high school into my late 20's, when Vandersteen 2C's showed me there was clearly an even more inviting world of high end audio out there to enjoy your music on.

I also followed the Large Advents with Vandersteen 2Ci's.

When I was dropping out of high school to start college early (Spring semester, I had my classes picked out, was all set) there was a ridiculous couple of weeks I had to wait for my paperwork to go through...lame but meh...so I hung out in the library reading piles of New Yorkers and whatever hifi mags were around in '68...I think that's what got me into hifi, although I was already a working musician building little PA systems for myself. Soon after I scored my first Real Good system...a KLH Model 20 compact thing that sounded great, mostly due to the speakers...had that sucker for years.

Without a doubt, the big Infinity 9 kappas powered by Sumo, i think. 
I had never heard a wall of sound like that before.  Definitely left a print in my head.