Vietnam era stereo reference

I was reading Halliday’s autobiographical Flying Through Midnight about his experience as a pilot over Laos during the Vietnam War. Early on he describes in surprise detail his buddy’s stereo system on that clandestine base.

To wit: "The room was stuffed floor to ceiling with every imaginable piece of state-of-the-art 1970 stereo equipment. It looked more like a sound studio than a place someone lived. Wiley had the newest equipment: a sansui 5000 amplifier, an AKAI crossfield head wheel to real tape deck, the top of the line Garrard English turntable, and four Pioneer CS99 speakers with 15 inch woofers. There was enough power to throb brooms marching out of the closet."

This is way way before my time so I have no idea if this is pretty good or not, but I was intrigued by how he remembered the brands when most people won’t even care about it. Will this constitute a good system back then? Especially on a secret and not supposed to be there air base somewhere in laos?