1st thing you need to do is bring out GIK or ASC (or someone similar) to your house to treat your room. If you have a terrible sounding room, no amount of money spent on quality gear will overcome a sh$tty sounding room.
Go out and listen to friends, dealers, or at shows gear to determine what kind of sound you like. Do you like tubes? Solid state? Mix of tube pre and solid state amp? Do you like smaller monitors or the bigger floorstanding speakers? You going to listen loud? Soft? Near field? Once you get a taste of what you like, then you can start narrowing it down to specific pieces of equipment.
Also, don’t evaluate any equipment for a final decision is a dealers showroom, bring it home into your room and your system to hear how it sounds.
Go out and listen to friends, dealers, or at shows gear to determine what kind of sound you like. Do you like tubes? Solid state? Mix of tube pre and solid state amp? Do you like smaller monitors or the bigger floorstanding speakers? You going to listen loud? Soft? Near field? Once you get a taste of what you like, then you can start narrowing it down to specific pieces of equipment.
Also, don’t evaluate any equipment for a final decision is a dealers showroom, bring it home into your room and your system to hear how it sounds.