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.