What was your first set up comprised of and how were your overall feelings of it? No shame if your first set up was less than glamorous.
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Memory is weak here… but… some JVC amplifier or other, some Technics turntable or other, Advent speakers. I think my first headphones were some long departed Koss set, but not sure about that either! The JVC amp had a headphone jack, didn’t even know people bought separate headphone amps. And maybe they didn’t, yet, lol.
Fiio E10K, I think. With ATH-AD700x 
Gaming basically…
Speakers… Some type of onkyo with an onkyo receiver.
Are we talking about onboard, first full set up…?
Laptop- nobsound NP-08 - SMSL AD18- Kbas and Shp9500s & Cal1& M40x. I loved it it all!
My first set up is my current set up. A FiiO FA1 connected to a FiiO e10k and ifi Ear Buddy. Portability was pretty important and affordability of the DAC too. I do also own a KZ ZST, but that was just to compare with.
Not sure about the e10k since I can’t really compare it to anything, but I like the FA1.
first setup was the HD650 paired with the Apogee Groove.
This would have been circa 1987 or 88
Rega Planar 3/RB-300/Don’t remember the cartridge -> Rotel 30W integrated Amp - want to say RA30 -> Castle Acoustics Bookshelf speakers
Later added a Philips CD4 after CD shipped, I think there were 20 or 30 CD’s available when I bought it.
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I’m still quite new to all this so I don’t understand your question due to lack of knowledge. What does onboard mean?
A JVC boombox with CD and tape decks in it. And an RCA equivalent of a Walkman for portable.
Somewhere around age 14 I finally cobbled together a complete enough component system. Had a pair of Technics speakers with 10" poly woofers and 2" paper cone tweeters that ran about $100 at the time. A Realistic (which I think is an old Radio Shack brand) integrated stereo amp my grandpa had in his garage, and a 5 disc carousel CD changer from Funai or Fischer or some other super cheap brands that started with an F. I still used that RCA Walkman as an FM tuner plugged into that amp with a y-cable.
Roccat Kave 5.1 hooked to SoundBlaster-Z
The soundcard was in use until it died in Q4’19, the head-punisher was boxed up to remind me of bad decisions in summer 2014.
Replacement was a Audiotechnica ATH-AD500x (which is still in use).
My 1st setup was a pair of Sennheiser HD598, Beyerdynamic DT 770 80 Ohm and a Schiit Stack (Modi 2, Magni 2).
Onboard audio. Like you’re plugging directly into the headphone jack on your computer.
Onboard counts in my book. What is it called if it’s not onboard, off board?
First EVER setup was my ridiculously over-zealous portable setup… I had Denon D2000’s running through a DigiZoid Zo, playing either 320kbps mp3’s or flac files off my HTC 10. Honesty didn’t sound bad at all but the 15 foot cable wasn’t always convenient lol.
However, my first proper stationary setup was just completed a couple weeks ago. Now I’m rocking the same old D2000’s as almost 10 years ago, but I’ve got them hooked up to a Schiit Modi 3 (optical out from mobo) and a THX 789. Needless to say, it sounds pretty glorious after EQ’ing for my treble sensitivity.
Onboard refers to the audio processing components being on your motherboard. There are external solutions that are used now, but there are still some people who insist on using sound cards.
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Some cheap $15 sennheiser earbuds. First real headphones? Alessandro (grados) MS1 running out of the old iPod with the scroll wheel or laptop.
HD600s directly to onboard sound. Eventually got an O2 amp/dac combo.
Akg k240 studio straight into my pc mobo back in like 2010.
First amp setup was hd 6xx with O2/SDAC combo
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