Your first system and your journey...

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

Almost forgot about the portable record player. Closed up like a mini suitcase. That would've been 69, 69, something like that. But I can't count that, because it wasn't "mine". As in I didn't buy it. My first system really was a system.

1) Motorola portable record player...yes it folded like a suitcase ~ 1964
2) a little red Lear Jet portable 8 track tape player, hitachi portable cassette player, Panasonic Transistor Radio
3) Sanyo compact stereo system
4) separates from Lafayette Radio 1978
5) Hitachi Class G receiver and Ohm L speakers, Philips 312 Table 1978
6) Tandberg receiver And Ohm Walsh 2s and Linn turntable, Magnavox CD player
7) Tandberg and Magnepan and Sony CD player
8) Carver separates and Magnepan
9) Carver Separates and B&W
10) Carver separates and New Ohm Walsh, Roku and Logitech streamers
11) Musical Fidelity and ARC and Ohms, MHDT Dac
12) Bel Canto ARC and Ohms