Aaaaaah lol... I'll play but in an unimpressive undertone.
Fully blasting as the pictures were taken...
This was built back in the years I was all about audio and as a secondary priority, general A/V - without much of financial means. I'd say the bulk of it is about ten years old when I got it - the amp older still because it was secondhand but fairly recent back then. The next generation was just out when I got it.
TV is a Sony LED 55" luxury model from 2014 - IPS but just a good old 1920*1080. 4K was out then so they did have higher end models still. I think the series was something like B950 or whatever. I couldn't care less about most of the extra connectivity and stuff they added on it, nor for 4K (I still don't and find full HD quite sufficient nowadays), but I chose Sony for their dedication to keep older ports in and a regular 1/8 jack audio out. Versatile TV (proven useful a fair few times since, would it be occasionally plugging in my old SNES or something) with an oustanding image, as close to Plasma I could find in these years where Plasma was being mostly abandonned.
I had a quite high end Panasonic plasma before, you see, quite better than this one where image and effective (instant with Plasma) refresh rate were concerned, but it also busted out within two years, and where I managed to extort out of Panasonic a free repair out of warranty, they didn't have nor produced the board anymore, and the tech came in with a certified refurbished board that also went dead like four months after the repair. So this was me out buying a new TV, but not going into any Plasma anyhow and this one was quite superior to any other LED I could find for a around a thousand bucks. An impressive feat back in those years - that TV model had been sold around the 1400-1600 mark for most of its shelf life. CAD, mind you. 1K models of that size were mostly cheap Chinese iterations of whitewashed, skimpy LED technology.
Back when I had bought the Panasonic - around 2012... is mostly when I got most of the kit as well: Monitor Audio BX5 speakers, Sunfire SDS-10 subwoofer, a bunch of high end cables, a Pioneer Elite Blu-Ray player that is the most higher end they did offer back then, and nowadays serves no purpose but playing that pille of Blu-Rays Harry Potter my daughters listen avidly every few months which you can see right aside the TV. My own Blu-Ray collection has long been converted into .mkv but I never bothered with converting Harry Potter, let alone in french dialogue they need, but that I myself cannot stomach in any movie but originally French ones. I used to have a dedicated CD player too - some Marantz I believe. Long sold when I also got all my CDs converted into .flac... Also some Panamax dedicated AVR power bar.
I started with a Yamaha stereo amp... pretty sure it was something like AS-500. Also sold when I got the CA Azur 840A for real cheap on secondhand market. Mostly lost no money, my Yam was almost new, still under warranty. and I sold it real close to price paid. That was somewhere around 2013.
The HTPC was built around the same time I started converting every hard medias I owned into digital files - 2013-2014 indeed. The core system has been updated since, but the gist of the audio is unchanged: an old, long dicontinued Xfi Titanium HD - one of the rare internal audio cards left in these years with full in and out RCA ports for a much nicer price than dedicated, most often external DACs. Gold-plated - LMFAO.
I used to route all cables separating audio and video feeds as well as power feeds... It's just like the most of the cables I still use nowadays because I have them: high end cables, the kind that have a direction you know, but if back then perhaps I could convince myself in hearing a difference, nowadays I can't care about it all. Same for bi-amping my speakers - I had led endless tests back in those days, but nowadays plug it the same just because it's set that way. You can see most of the expense clearly in the pics - heavy-gauged golden flecked black mesh (HDMI) or silver flecked blue mesh (audio from soundcard to amp), and around 12 gauge/4 fully-insulated wires speaker cable.
The subwoofer is possibly the most outstanding piece of equipment. It was no high end, but this thing can push low frequency out like crazy with impressive presence and details. I'm mostly running it with 100Hz cutoff and low volume settings. Way too crazy or overwhelming in a regular sized room and stereo setup otherwise. Also has it's own dedicated silver-flecked sky-blue Y-ended mono - was that the belief of a clear +3dBA difference or some other stupid waste of time and money, I could not say.
I never went into multi channels receivers, and never will. I don't believe SO MUCH in cables and otherwise nerdy audio stuff anyhow, but a dedicated quality stereo amp and stereo setup is never going to be a concession. Even with movies, this setup is astounding - no need for surround there in a regular sized room.
That's the audio setup of a guy that stopped pursuing delicacies, and stopped caring so much altogether but keep it running and nice sounding - but that once was all too much into it with all too much of a limited budget.
Also back then bought a few things for my main PC. Active speakers, some Pioneer Subwoofer that's actually in its box right now but an outstanding piece of low-end equipment signed Mr. Andrew Jones (IIRC) but not of the real high end he mostly collaboarated into with Pioneer. Some Asus Xonar external DAC that was none of the high-end Xonar but in between. A headset of Sennheiser HD 550 open circumaural I nowadays strictly use with the main PC in guise of the old active & subwoofer setup. I'd really be due for a change of that headset - or at least the earpads - cause the foam came loose at one point since. But I'll probably go rather luxrury mid-end again with a new set because that is a crucial piece of equipment.
Mind you back then I had chosen the Asus Xonar because it did carry a 3/4 audio jack. The Marantz CD player had its own back then and pretty good dedicated DAC. The CA amp obviously also did, as well as the initial Yamaha. Gave the PC active speakers to some former girlfriend a few years back. All these things were SO important for me back then. Nowadays... well I like the sound quality, but most of the craziness I'm long jaded with.
I'm just happy that the audio choices still stand strong today. I can probably not make out so much audio subtelties as I believed I did back then - or hoped to - but for quality and endurance I'm quite confident with the choices I've made.
As cheap as it is, this is the fabled vintage 2012 circa 5K$-range dedicated stereo **** reasonable budget - obviously not counting the TV in nor the cost of the HTPC outside of the Audio card. Don't even want to think how much I'd be into nowadays.