Your first system and your journey...


Since we are on a audiophile (or is that audio-pile) site many, if not most, have had some decent systems.  I would enjoy in hearing from all/any about what your first system was made up of.  Mine was a Dynaco, I think something like a 35, tube integrated with some small British two way speakers and a BSR McDonald turntable with something like a 44E Shure cartridge , ...and yes, lamp cord for wires and whatever came on the turntable.  It is almost sad to say I have spent much more on some interconnects than that first system cost. 
whatjd
 @fuzztone - Allied Radio Superstore! On Western in Chicago. Musicraft! Weren't they on Oak street? Near north? Bought an Empire 698 turntable (demo) at their going-out-of-business sale.
I think someone bought the rights to "Allied Radio" name and will be selling equipment again.
Midnight Madness Sale! Woo-Hoo!
Hitachi receiver
Turntable- Pioneer?
Speakers-ARS?
Columbia Record Membership
Off to the races.
Oh yea discarded headphones from Spanish class.
It was all about the music until some vets turned me on to their silver behemoths. Then it was sound and the music. 
I bought my first real stereo system when I was 15 in 1969. I had been working in my uncles liquor store (under the table) doing bottle returns and stock for 2 years and saved every cent I got. I proudly came home with a 10wpc Sansui receiver, a BSR turntable with the cheapest Shure Magnetic Cartridge, a pair of Rectilinear bookshelf speakers and a Sony Cassette deck (pre Dolby). I believe I dropped around $500-600.00 that day. The speakers were used and everything else was brand new. I felt like I was sitting on top of the world.
It was circa '61, and I was 15.  I built an integrated tube amp from a kit: it was an Eico ST40.  Next came really crappy 12 inch speakers with wizzer cones, a Garrard table with a Pickering cartridge. A FM tuner and an Ampex tape deck soon joined the team.  I toiled in the lube room of a gas station in Pasadena Ca. to make all of this possible.  Looking back my first system wasn't much, but it lit a fire in me that still burns today.