Buy the best CD player that you can justify. It will establish what the rest of your system has to work with. Buy from stable, highly regarded manufacturers. For tube equipment, Jolida will be hard to beat. You can get an integrated amp, tube CD player, floor standing speakers, appropriate cabling, and an AC power screen for less than $3k. Also, consider a Sound Organisation stand for 250.00. Proper set up is essential to getting the best sound for the money. For solid state gear, consider Arcam electronics. For speakers, consider Focal / J.M. Lab. An example line up could be: (1) Jolida tube CD player @ 900.00, (1) Jolida integrated amplifier @ 750.00, (1) pair of floorstanding J.M. Lab speakers @ 850.00, (1) pair of Nordost speaker and interconnect cables @ 250.00 and (1) Audio Power Industries "Pack II" AC power screen @ 250.00. These are list prices. If you find these on Audiogon, you will pay alot less.
Looking for first system advice
I'm looking at entering the world of hifi components and am looking to spend 2-3k for a 2 channel system with speakers, amp, pre-amp. Looking for a place to begin, I spent some time in audio stores and without a certain starting point other than that listed above, started listening to speakers and really liked the sonus fabers that I listened to. I'm just looking for recs on "beginner" systems or components/types of components that would work/would not work (tube vs ss etc) with these speakers. I also listened to some martin logans that sounded pretty good. I'm not sold on either or these two brands so any help would be great.