Back in '70 or '71, I was visiting a friend who had a Harman Kardon receiver and Utah speakers and I couldn't believe how much better it sounded than my GE 'suitcase' stereo with the fold-down turntable.
He told me about an old used Fisher tube amp (x-101-ST) that he had seen at a repair shop being sold for $60. That was big bucks for me at the time but I scraped the money together and bought it (I still have it). I also bought his dad's Garrard Type A.
Somewhere, I found a pair of 12" coaxial EV Wolverine speakers without cabinets and temporarily mounted them in cardboard boxes. I later scraped up the money for some birch veneer plywood and built cabinets for them from the EV plans.