1) Invest in a good set of headphones. They will help you isolate the effects of components from speaker cables and listening space.
2) Take your time and savor the journey as much as you can. By the end, you will have a much better idea of what you like and will have developed much better listening skills. It is a joyful process.
3) Don't blow your budget on expensive cables until you have proven to yourself that YOU can hear a difference. If spending $500 on speaker wires is a better way to invest your money than getting better speakers, something is wrong.
4) Decide what media is the alpha dog in your collection. If your favorite music is all on CDs in your library, get a great CD/universal player first and hold off on a turntable & cartridge, or vice versa. Or if funds are limited at this time and you're true love is vinyl. Get a decent CD player and and hold off on the analog front end until you are thoroughly familiar with the rest of you system and have saved enough to avoid compromising your choice of turntable/arm/cartridge/phono pre and tonearm cable - the one cable that makes a big difference. IMHO
5) carefully identify 3-5 really good CDs or LPs that test a system. Well recorded with wide, deep soundstage, the vocals that really move you, the best sax solo you've ever heard, your favorite bass line, the most subtle details, etc. Use them as a uniform set of tests for all listening decisions.
All this is simpler than it sounds.
Best of luck and enjoy the journey.
2) Take your time and savor the journey as much as you can. By the end, you will have a much better idea of what you like and will have developed much better listening skills. It is a joyful process.
3) Don't blow your budget on expensive cables until you have proven to yourself that YOU can hear a difference. If spending $500 on speaker wires is a better way to invest your money than getting better speakers, something is wrong.
4) Decide what media is the alpha dog in your collection. If your favorite music is all on CDs in your library, get a great CD/universal player first and hold off on a turntable & cartridge, or vice versa. Or if funds are limited at this time and you're true love is vinyl. Get a decent CD player and and hold off on the analog front end until you are thoroughly familiar with the rest of you system and have saved enough to avoid compromising your choice of turntable/arm/cartridge/phono pre and tonearm cable - the one cable that makes a big difference. IMHO
5) carefully identify 3-5 really good CDs or LPs that test a system. Well recorded with wide, deep soundstage, the vocals that really move you, the best sax solo you've ever heard, your favorite bass line, the most subtle details, etc. Use them as a uniform set of tests for all listening decisions.
All this is simpler than it sounds.
Best of luck and enjoy the journey.