I had lusted after one ever since I could remember. I used to patiently wait for some neighbors to come home so that I could listen to my cassette in its full glory on their HiFi or on a good day have them play a record. Dad only had a mono boom box at that time. We were lower middle class.
Last year of college, my brother and I hit upon the idea of applying for a TV loan and then cashing the check to buy separates. The loan took its sweet ass time, it was a small credit union, and by that time the rack we were looking at was sold. I was shattered. I still miss the Teac equalizer with the green spectrum analyzer.
Then I found a beautiful Kenwood KA405 Amp, a Sansui D90 cassette deck and Pioneer CS405 speakers.
I was king !
Later I added a beautiful dark grey Akai analog tuner and a Sansui SR333 turntable. :)
And in 1991 added a small Crown CD player that would read old and scratched disks very well but brand new ones would play with a lot of terrible crackling. No one including the technician could figure out why.
Mine was cobbled together as well when I was a teen. In the late 1980s my older brother upgraded, and his Panasonic quadraphonic receiver went unused. I gave him $10. It had originally been owned by our oldest brother. I can’t even find it online. Basic, low wattage, similar to RE-7671. Got my hands on some EPI Microtower M-75 speakers from a garage sale for $25. It wasn’t a great setup, but I thought it was. Added an older Toshiba turntable, a new JVC cd player with my HS graduation money, and eventually a new JVC tape deck. I later bought a JVC receiver that matched my other two components, and upgraded speakers. The Panasonic, speakers, and turntable went to my girlfriend. Hopefully her or someone else is still enjoying them. I never did hear quadraphonic sound out of it, as none of my components were quad capable. By the 1980s, quadraphonic was just seen as an old fad.