Your experience in "in their day" brands/components that you remember foundly?

I love music and have enjoyed "high-end" audio for several decades.

With this being said, I am interested in hearing what may be your 

"golden oldies" that you have owned?  For me there are many that 

were part of my beginnig.  The original large Advents and a Yamaha 

CA-1000 started my "better gear" travels...that lead to Dahlquists, Magnepans, 

and seperated from Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, early Classe and 

many others.  What were your "roots" that helped your journey?