Your first system and your journey...

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.

First set up (in 1977) was fabulous Bose 301s + JVC receiver (including built-in graphic equalizer) + Onkyo direct drive (?) turntable. I paid cash, and it got the job done on my college student budget.

I started late besides a boombox I had in HS/college my first real system was a Bryston B-60 and Rega Planet embarrassingly driving, briefly, a pair of white van speakers. Yes I was one of those suckers! :)