New to the game. Need some beginners advice.

i agree with pdn, that book was/is my bible. if youre lucky. you library might have a copy. the other thing that ive learned over the years is that sound, music, the feeling it brings you is and will always be a personal thing and the sensations that you will get out of it beats any review, forum, advise, blog, new tweak etc etc etc... go with your ears... some of us can literally "see" the band and the stage in front of us, while others dont "get" that. it took me a while to grasp the ins and outs of it, and im still learning... bottom line is this, its a hobby, an expensive one at times, but one that does bring a significant amount of pleasure despite the pains you will experience growing into it.

cheers and enjoy the music.

alex from montreal

another book called "Good Sound" is helpful to beginners ... hold off on buying anything until you have more info. in my opinion you can do much better than Adcom/NAD for the $$$ even used

Thank you for your responses. I have ordered the books that you guys have suggested. This is going to be fun...

After you have absorbed all of the excellent advice given, I recommend that you go higher than Adcom or NAD, because there is so much fantastic top of the line "high end" available for a song and a dance here on the Gon. Stick with the known winners as confirmed by the threads on this site. For example, CJ PV-12 is a known winner for a preamp. Research will provide you with others.

if you just seek tight bass and a coherent sounding system you can save a lot of money and time with NAD equipment. OTOH, if you want to transcend the limits
of the-commonly-thought-of-as-a-good-sounding-system it WILL take a great deal of research and/or spending gobs of money on often-weird-and-inconvenient components (i.e.- when they break which can happen much more often than you anticipated, you might spend 6-8 weeks calling, writing, and waiting for your state-of-the-art component to return so you can start listening again).
i chose the 2nd route of course, but i still often long for the SAE-2 integrated amplifier i once had, with fluorescent meters and lots of tone-shaping controls, a phono input, 70W/CH, wood-veneer side panels, etc. i later bought the matching tuner and was rocking out to the radio, too. AND i don't remember ever saying to myself- "this sounds bad". i was having way too much fun, and the system even did a decent job playing Beethoven. Of course, NOW i have a MUCH better hi-fi costing obscene amounts just for a 3 foot piece of wire, and i am buying SACD's that after one listening wish i could return for a refund. of course certain other discs sound deliciously real. as long as i either choose carefully or just get lucky.
but at the same time i don't DARE put on a Jefferson airplane alblum which screeches instead of "flows" out of the speakers. James Taylor "Sweet Baby James"
(a typical pressing) doesn't sound like it was mixed properly anymore. the record used to sound fine, but that was years ago in a land far far away...
here's one more special surprise- CSN&Y- wait a minute! what is wrong with this record?! it sounds like it was pieced together using an 8-track cassette deck...
but hey, it's your choice. at times it's kind of like driving a lamborghini- racing the wind at 140 MPH, or taking a wrong turn and getting stuck on a road full of pot-holes...