Help in setting up my first sound system

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After you've followed all the good advice on this thread and after you've purchased your initial system, visit this forum at least once a week and read through the threads. In 12 months, you'll begin to tweak what you've purchased, 6 months after that, one by one, you'll begin to slowly replace the items that you originally purchased.

In adopting a hi-fi hobby, you're about to start a never ending journey.

....my advice is, while on your journey, never be afraid to trust your ears.

.....enjoy the ride
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Thank you all so much for your advice. I feel a little more confident now. My budget is around $US1500.

For my system I'm thinking of an integrated amp and a pair of floorstanding speakers. I live in Hong Kong so there's not too much equipment to choose from and not really many places where I can test equipment. (I'm hoping to get second hand gear)

The room where the system will be is rectangular, concrete walls and has a tiled floor.(around 4 metres by 10 metres It's the main living area so I wont have much room to play with. (I guess a more social set up would be realistic, although I do enjoy listening to my music and take it seiously)

Speakers I've been looking into are B&W and KEF but am open to any brand. Not even began to look at integrated amps yet.

Musical tastes are indi, rock, jazz

Most of my music is on an MP3 player (I try to use a higher bit rate 192 - 320) Would this make a significant difference in sound quality compared to CD's?

So with all this in mind, what type/style of speakers (should i biwire) and amp should I be looking out for and what would you recommend?

Thanks again.

B&W and Kef are good speakers.
These reviews might be of interest to you :

http://whathifi.com/Reviews/Hi-Fi-Reviews/Hi-fi-speakers-Reviews/Rule-Star-Rating-5-stars!9/

For integrated amp, you want to get one that matches the speaker well - some combinations are better than others. After choosing the speaker, I would ask here for the right synergy integrated amp.

You can start here though :

http://whathifi.com/Reviews/Hi-Fi-Reviews/Hi-fi-amplifiers-Reviews/Rule-Star-Rating-5-stars!8/Price_Desc/

Hongkong is a good place for hifi - please read this :

http://www.onestepcloser.co.nz/wordpress/?p=73

There are some good sounding chinese hifi gears - you might want to explore that too, like Cayin amps, melody, music hall, etc.

Wu ei hifi...

I have 4 pieces of Chinese gear: two Audio Space monoblock amplifiers, an Audio Space integrated amp and a JAS Audio CD player. In my humble opinion these offer extraordinary value for money; I don't know where you would find equivalent sound and build quality at a lower price unless you got very lucky on the second-hand market.

I believe Audio Space and JAS Audio are actually based in Hong Kong.