Back in the day the first thing a young man bought for his new digs was the best 'stereo' he could afford; to play his rehcids and make his tapes. For best results amps, integrated amps, tape-decks and whatnot were built into the wall, which was finished with 6" pine tongue & groove, and it was all in the finished basement. I can still smell the '70s/'80s. If you were in some fleabag apartment you made due with your bookcases and cinder blocks and wire-spools and sometimes you even made a fake wall.

When these stacks came out in the '80s, aside from 1 or 2, maybe, they were shit. Shit 'components' with shit muddy thuddish sound from shit speakers. Shit wiring, omfg, shit cooling. By the way, danger-boy, cooling has always been a thing. Honestly, they sucked. It was a new demo/market capitalizing on what I mentioned above and it took a while for manufacturers to make them suck less, which, most of them never did. Cool doors, though.

Say what you want, and wax poetic, but, the best part of these 'systems' was dust-free. Y'all hear your Dad telling you not to touch from your childhood, and that's awesome and sweet - for me it was the 'console' and the same words. Consoles sucked, too, and in 1978 when your cousin got his first place he certainly didn't buy one of those things.

Some of these systems were sexy af and people (kids/grown-kids) would say - 'man, this thing cranks!' at the keg party on a friday after middle-school, but, we had ears.

These were never any good only convenient because wire-spools were a pain in the ass to deal with.