Your first system and your journey...

My first? My very first? Memory’s a little hazy but it was probably Realistic. For sure it was bought at Radio Shack with paper route money back in 1973. After riding my bike there many times, and hours of listening to everything they had, moving the speakers around, sometimes pestering sales with questions, other times sneaking around to hook up different speakers to compare. So yeah I been at it a while. Anyway: two hefty bookshelf size speakers, a Realistic (probably) receiver/record changer, some thin lamp cord, and the supplied plastic power cord.

That was the very first one.

PS- the room was of course acoustically treated- DIY egg cartons. Because: Hello!? Thirteen! Paper route money!

1983. Technics SLB2 table (9volt RIAA into a Vox AC30) then a Rotel RA840 amp and Kef Coda 3 speakers. Years before that a mono tube Pilot radio and an ancient idler.

And to add a bit of nothing to my original post, one of my best friends Mom had a truck stop/diner near a small Iowa town.  She would let us use the quarters with the fingernail polish on them (so she would get them back) to play early 60s rock until she couldn't take it any longer.....had our 8th grade "Graduation Party" there.  It was the beginning of the British Invasion and I went to sleep every night listening to WLS from Chicago or KAAY from Little Rock.  Went through a great deal of paper route money on 9-volt batteries. 

My first "system" was a $20 portable phonograph. It was followed shortly thereafter by an H. H. Scott integrated turntable/receiver with Scott speakers, manufactured when Mr. Scott no longer owned the company. The first system that I would refer to without the quotes, though, consisted of a Sony turntable, Shure cartridge, Kenwood receiver, and Avid speakers, ca. 1978.

Best regards,
-- Al