Your first system and your journey...

1959 Zenith Portable w/ Cobra Tonearm
Up to 1968 Dad's system.
1968 Dynaco PAS 3X, Stereo 70, AR 2Ax, Thorens TD 124 w/ ADC Pritchard tonearm (used) and Empire cartridge (I think) 
1971 Dynaco Stereo 120 (big mistake)
1972 Klipsh Heresy's used Marantz 7C preamp.
1973 Phase Linear 700 (also used) and added a pair of Advent speakers to the Heresy's Revox R to R w/ dolby. 
In 1968 my dad bought and Ariens snow blower. The deal was I could do as many driveways as I wanted as long as I did ours first. God knows how much I made. I spent every penny on records and Hi Fi. A financial wizard I am not. 

Kenwood KR-77 receiver (24 wpc), Garrard SL-95B with Pickering cart, Allied Bookshelf speakers -12 inch woofer, horn midrange, ? tweeter (comparable to Klipsch Forte). Sixteen years old and Hendrix was still making records. Gotta love it...

Radio Shack got me through Jr High. Then I graduated from delivering newspapers to delivering Big Macs. With $2.35/hr burning a hole in my pocket the extra money went into trips to Jafco to audition everything, which it came down to efficient JBL vs power hog Advents. Gradually as things went on sale got me through my first full system upgrade and off to college with JBL L26, Kenwood integrated, Pioneer TX-9100 tuner, patch cords, and some nice thick lamp cord. Right as I went off to WSU, or maybe freshman year I'm not sure, somewhere around in there I got a Technics SL-1700 semi-auto with Stanton 681EEE. Also a Pioneer RT whatever, forget the model, 10" RTR.

While at Puyallup High I built a Dynaco ST-400. But that beast was too heavy, took up too much precious dorm room space, and made power you didn't really need in a dorm room anyway, so it was Kenwood integrated all through college.

My roommate that freshman year had a Pioneer integrated, JBL L36, Pioneer belt drive table and a Sony 7" RTR deck. Dorm room doors tend to be open more often than not. Guys would be walking down the hall, glance in, see the decks and it would be like their neck was caught in a hook. Hilarious.

Many of us that served in the military during the Vietnam War, whoops-I'm sorry....conflict, bought Japanese electronics while in Southeast Asia.   A great number of Sansui and Kenwood units....pre cd so turntables and most of the Japanese speakers looked good but were not that great sonically.  So I stuck mainly with speakers from the U.S. or England.  To put it mildly, even as a youth, some of that early gear was great for helping add to an alcohol induced headache. 

pre cd so turntables and most of the Japanese speakers looked good but were not that great sonically.

Yeah, none of us really had any idea what great sound was until the CD came along and showed us all how its done.