G'day, I grew up on a farm a couple of miles from the Canadian border. Went to school in a small town that had a Zenith dealer and nobody else with stereo stuff or even televisions. So my dad bought the top of the line Zenith console with monster tube amps, 15 inch woofers, good midranges, and decent tweeters. It sounded really good.
I worked on the farm in the summer and a grocery store in the winter. On one of our few trips to the "big" town nearest us I walked into my first electronics store. I bought the first calculator in my high school and a Wollensak 8 track quad unit. I plugged this into Dad's console stereo and the sound was awesome.
Then, one of my fellow students gave me a pair of his dad's old speakers for me to play with. It was a pair of Altec 15" 3 way speakers. Dad and I made a couple of enclosures and ran wire down to the basement, across the ceiling, and up to my room in the opposite corner of the house. We installed our own switches to play the speakers separately from the console so he didn't have to listen to my crap any more.
I went off to college in 1974 with only the Wollensak hoping to get a roommate that had a system. No such luck but I did run into a guy with a Roberts reel to reel. Ok, now I had amplification and speakers. Then in 1978 I got a grant, a scholarship, and a student loan. First thing I got was an SAE 3100, SAE2900, and a pair of AR speakers. Oh yeah, a turn table too but I cannot remember which one.
Two years went by and I was getting married. As a wedding present, my inlaws gave me another 3100 and another identical pair of AR speakers. And these did come from the PX as he was military.
Then, while living in married housing (a quonset hut) I got a real job while my wife went to school. Next thing you know I had a pair of SAE 2600's and and SAE 2100 and my first cassette deck. Got a much better turn table as well. And then the entire system got retired to storage where it sits today other than what I am using and blowing up in the garage.