your first system-

First system, way back in 1971 was a Sansui 20wpc receiver, Rectilinear 1A speakers, BSR record changer with a Shure cartridge and a Sony cassette deck (pre Dolby B). System was around $575.00 give or take a little. Speakers were connected with 16 gauge lamp cords and the RCA cables were a couple of bucks per pair.   I listened to Tull, Zeppelin, ELP, Floyd, Yes , etc. I bought everything brand new with the money I saved over the summer from working at Burger Chef. I felt like I was on top of the world.

@ghdprentice

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

Thanks for your kind words. Yes, I have a ridiculously large spreadsheet w over 100 tabs of researched product comparisons. I wanted a transparent, linear, neutral system which will help future component upgrade evaluations like when I move up to better DACs.

I also wanted to explore tube magic (colorization?) so got a flea watt 300b and will likely get Volti Rival 100db speakers (seems relatively linear/neutral for a high efficiency speaker)- bummer price just increased by $3k recently

1976 bought at the PX in Torrejon Spain. Sanusi  9090,Pioneer PL530 Tt, Teac 5500a RR, Pioneer CTF 8282 cassette deck and four Sansui 7500SP speakers.  Rocking the casbah. The neighbors loved it. I still have it all.

The mid 70's were a time when a teen with a dream and some side job/hustle could walk into one of the ubiquitous stereo stores that were around and say- one day. And the dudes who worked in the stores, often half stoned, didn't mind the company

Great topic.

My first two systems were MCS or Modular Component Systems back around 1974 or so. Don’t remember much about the model numbers but my second system had a MCS 3233 receiver, 33 WPC. Had MCS speakers, turntable, cassette deck, headphones. Also a Realistic 5-band EQ. Wired up with the included interconnects and upgraded 18-guage zip wire. System sounded great and this second system was put together around 1976. Totally enjoyed it but it did push me to move on to  a high end system after that one. Mowed lawns and did odd jobs like land scaping and working in restaurants to finance my audio fix.