Your experience in "in their day" brands/components that you remember foundly?

So my starter system in 1977 in college was a Phase Linear 4000 pre, a Phase Linear 400 power amp, a Yamaha Tuner, a Phillips 212 turntable (with highly cool green LED touch sensors for speed on on/off, which in 1977, was awesome( and Electovoice speakers which I replaced with Epicure Trilogy 3.0 speakers.

But what sucked me into hifi was a setup at this store called Natural Sound in Framingham, Mass, where I grew up.  Mark Levinson separates, a turntable that I dont remember but looked very hi end, and stacked Quad ESL57’s.  To me, it was like the band was playing in the room . . . It was just an awesome experience.  Of course, the weed might had something to do with it, but I remember that sound so well.  I recently spoke with one of my college buddies who went there with me and he agreed that that was just about as great as we could imagine!  Ive been chasing that sound since then!

My first leap into audio started at 13 - was a GE am/fm 8 track.   I then built some 3 way speakers using radio shack components.  Obviously low fi at best.   At 19 or so I bought a NAD 7155 receiver and a Sony CD player.   By mid 20s I moved onto Aragon & Mirages M5si.   I then swapped the Aragon for Counterpoint gear.   That was a notable improvement over 12 years or so.   My tastes in music also evolved along with my ‘critical’ listening skills and overall knowledge of equipment, tubes.    It’s a journey over many decades.  However, my first 10, 12 years were the most exciting to be honest.

Sansui AU9900 , that was my first real component.   I gave that to my brother and replaced it with an Apt Holman preamp and Apt 1 amp

I was fortunate to go to work for a McIntosh retailer in Florida at the age of nineteen in 1972. We sold Pioneer as our opening price point offerings, and we had " complete systems" set up by price point starting at $499.00, I believe. For newbies, it made product selection easier, and we could easily step them up to the next price point by simply letting them listen to the difference. Some of the brands/models that were popular: Altec, JBL, Garrard, Dual, ADC (straight line tracking TT), Teac, Bose, Sony/Superscope (tape decks only), Tandberg (a fabulous brand), Revox (another amazing brand), Soundcraftsman, and  Marantz. I did not understand the Marantz quality until some years later. I wish I had my hands on some of the old gear traded in for new McIntosh gear, especially during the clinics. We were one of the early Bang & Olufsen dealers- that was a curious but not particularly interesting brand to me. I sold JBL L-100s like cordwood. We sold Soundtech receivers too, but not many takers- it was just easier to sell the newest Pioneer gear. By 1975, we were selling discrete and SQ quad receivers- an interesting idea to compel the consumer to buy new gear, and my boss let me buy many of the new quadraphonic LP's to demo- there was not a lot of content in 1975. Good memories!

Technically, the ADC brand did not get any traction until maybe 1977. They got out of alignment with some regularity, but the $50.00 spiff per unit was awesome for a brief time- I sold 50 units that month, which was a lot of dough in 1977.