The year is 1986

My first year college was '86. I had an all Technics system with Genesis speakers. Loved it for what it was.

It somewhat depends on your taste in music. If you want speakers for '60s/'70s rock and pop, the JBL/Cerwin-Vega/Klipsch/Altec variety with high efficiency, thump in the bass, and a fast, forward midrange will do.

For broader tastes that include classical and jazz, you might want something more linear, such as the better Infinity's, ADS, Advent, and maybe ESS (though they'll need re-foaming and probably a refurb of the Heil transducers).

As far as speakers that hold up well from 30 years ago, I nominate the ADS L-series speakers. Fast, airy, good imaging, clean from top to bottom, inert cabinets--they had all these things together before they became fashionable. They could also rock out as long as you pushed them with a real amplifier and not some low current receiver. There's a local store that has some exc. condition L990s (I had L1090s) that tempt me, but I have so many good modern speakers I don't know where I'd put them.

What kind of interconnects and speaker wire were you guys running? I had the rat shack ICS with monster speaker wire and spent more time untangling cables than listening.

Not Cerwin Vegas, unless you love boomy bass

I run a pair of the kg4's in a system, in my garage. I don't listen to them that often, but when I do, they just plain rock out. As much as I loved the older jbl's of yester-year,they did make my ears bleed...yikes!!!