If your were to assemble a vintage system ?

No idea on cost, I'll be close. Sansui, Infinity, and a Denon TT for DD or a Thoren for a belt, AR or Dual, will all work perfect too..

600.00 for a receiver
1000.00 speakers RS4b something like that..or VMPS Towers
3-600 for a TT and a good MM cart

Double that cost, is where I was at with Mcintosh. I still use Macs, Thoren, VMPS and a few more..

Cables 50 years ago.. 20 bucks.., mine were USAF surplus Silver # 12 still have them (100 foot was 40 dollars) I made ALL my own cable even back then, Copper, RCA cable and RCA ends.. No gold! Radio Shack.

Nickel, copper, some plated stuff back then. Sterling maybe..
I don't remember anything being gold plated..

Regards

Well, it wouldn't involve any receivers, that's for sure! Remember you said "musical" not "crapical"!  

For musical I would go with something like the Dynaco SCA-35 tube integrated amp. https://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/dynaco-sca35_e.html For speakers if we really are talking musical and vintage then it would be the Advents. Although they are horribly inefficient and won't play loud with this amp they will sound awfully musical and their vintage appeal cannot be denied. If you want your musical loud then JBL L25 which is what I got, or the slightly more expensive (and a lot better looking) L36.

Being vintage we cannot have real cables and must go with lamp cord so we take advantage of this and use our funds to buy a nice Dual turntable and of course the beautiful Pioneer TX-9100 tuner. https://stereonomono.blogspot.com/2015/04/pioneer-tx-9100.html
These could all be mint/refurbished and still be under $1500.

Not much of a budget but you are good with the AR table and Vandersteens. But you have to toss the old receiver idea, those were bloody awful. Maybe an older Yamaha or Sansui integrated amp but buy the time you freshen it up you are into real money. I'd buy a used but current integrated amp with an old time look. Spend a little money and don't cheap out on power or low line amps, get something good it will last a long time. 

I’m going to keep posting this stuff until MC stops being 1) rude and 2) annoying. So it could be for a while:

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/12752-blind-listening-tests-amplifiers.html

For a recent non-believer, I used an Onkyo SR500 Dolby Digital receiver--purchased reconditioned for $200 (they're $250 - $300 new) against some well regarded separates. It's rated at 65 watts x 2 stereo per the FTC guidelines into 8 ohms. Distortion is 0.08% from 20-20k from 1 watt to 65 watts into 8 ohms. It has a "direct" bypass feature that supposedly bypasses all the digital/DSP for analog stereo signals.

The Onkyo was put up against the well regarded Bryston 4B 300 wpc power amp and a Bryston 2 channel pre-amp. They were driving a pair of expensive floor standing KEF speakers and the source was a high-end Marantz CD player. The person who owns this system is very proud of it and has spent a lot of time getting what he considers to be the best sound possible.

I had the Bryston owner pick the level he wanted to do the comparison at while listening to his system. I then used pink noise to level match the Onkyo to his system while he was out of the room. The Onkyo was running in its "Stereo Direct" analog mode.

I called him back in to listen, he sat down in the sweet spot and I replayed the same CD track he'd used to pick the levels. He immediately started complaining about how bad the Onkyo sounded. He said it sounded thin, compressed, harsh and a few other things. I smiled and turned the Onkyo off and the music kept playing. He'd said all those negative things about his own Bryston gear!

With him red faced, we proceeded to do at least an hour of listening with me swapping cables, or only pretending to, when he requested a switch. He listened to his favorite audiophile CDs. I did lots of swaps and fake swaps and during each would ask him which he thought he was listening to. In the end, his answers were roughly 50% correct which is the same as if he'd been randomly guessing. He even finally admitted, he couldn't tell which was which and WAS only guessing! I took his place and also couldn't hear any difference between the lowly receiver and his prized Bryston gear.

And ref: “lamp chords” - no audible differences as long as basic current handling requirements are met:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.soundguys.com/cable-myths-reviving-the-coathanger-test-23553/amp/

What needs to be stated plainly here is that the only thing this experiment demonstrated was that the use of cables of the correct specifications should not be audibly any different than each other. If you use an appropriate gauge wire, and the proper connectors: you should be golden regardless of how much—or little—you spend on cables. Consequently, you should probably just stick with Monoprice, Mogami, or AmazonBasics for your audio cable needs if you don’t care about how they look.