Thank God for student loans!!!! Walked into my local stereo store in Santa Barbara Ca. ..in 1976, and dropped about 1000.00 on a Yamaha cr 800 reciever, a Nakamichi 550 cassette deck and some ADS speakers....when I got every thing home, it turned out the Nakamichi was defective.....so the next dayI took it back, and upgraded to the 600 model.I already had a Phillips 202 electronic turntable.......... I wish I still had the speakers...but I blew out the tweeters after 10 years....
your first system-
I put together my first system in 1977- turntable, receiver, speakers and a cassette deck- $600. An on-line inflation calculator tells me that is $2760 in 2022 dollars. I am sure a current $1500 streaming based system can be assembled that would demolish my 1977 system. That's what I call real progress!