your first system-

Fun topic! 1977 for me as well. Amazingly, my parents surprised me with it, probably for my birthday. (I wonder if they later regretted it!) It was a Harmon Kardon 330c receiver, a Garrard 55b turntable ... and Acoustic Research speakers, though I can't remember the model. Mostly I remember the green lights on the receiver. I bought Get Yer Ya-Yas Out and Zep2, added some Koss headphones, and never looked back....

@kennyc 

Clearly you have put a lot of research into that system… it should be a very detailed and revealing system. 

1969 (Just in time for Led Zeppelin!):

Kenwood KR-77 low-power (18 wpc) SS receiver

Allied Radio Horn speakers (12 inch woofer) similar to my current Forte 4s

Gerrard SL-95B TT with Pickering cartridge (I think)

Red and white RCA interconnects with zip cord speaker wire

Pure heaven when you're 16 years old!

Sherwood s7910, large Advents, BIC 960, Teac 250. Moody Blues, Led Zeppelin and Cat Stevens.

My first jump up to hi-fi in the early 70s was when I sold my Bose 901s and bought a stacked pair of Infinity 1001As with a Harman Kardon Citation amp, using my Pioneer receiver as the pre-amp. 4 twelve inch woofers really got my ELP albums thumping.

I can trace every piece of gear I own to my first cheap stereo system, I never started with a clean sheet, I always upgraded one thing at a time. I learned a lot doing that way over the decades.