Building a synergistic system. What to buy?

A good friend of mine is in the process of moving from a house to apartment, so doing pretty much what you're after.  He settled on a Musical Designs amp & preamp he got used for <1k total and is going to upgrade the caps in the pre.  He's getting ready to purchase some Fritz Carbon 6's and he already has some stands.  He's also going to downsize his VPI TT and keep his CDP.

There are definitely some deals to be had out there and it may take a bit of experimenting on your part to come up with a system you're satisfied with.

If I had to put together an apartment rig, I would prob opt for something like a Cary integrated and maybe Fritz spkrs.  Again, so many choices to make there is no correct answer.

Good luck!

My thoughts for now:

Look for stand mount speaker that is either front ported or closed box type to address the need to be against the front wall. Audio Advisor sells several stands, I have found the shorter stands (20") work best for me. 

Look for a line level integrated amplifier having ~50 wpc and doubles wattage into a 4ohm load, thus purchasing quality over quantity wpc. Keep digital components out out the analog chain. 

Allocate funds somewhat equally across both components. 

Explore the marketplace and come  back with with components under consideration. If lacking local dealers check out Audio Advisor, Crutchfield, Music Direct as legit online dealers.

@driver @mesch , thanks. Hard for me to blind the Fritz without hearing them, but those seem to be liked by people. Was the Cary amp you were thinking of the CAI solid state , or the SL80? I tube? I'd prefer to stay away from tubes and just get a quality solid state even if it's a 2 black salad state simply because I'd like to. Keep my equipment in a cabinet and tubes throw off a lot of heat. 

Also I'm not completely opposed to just doing an Active set of speakers like the Kef ls50 ii  wireless, But those are about 3 grand and I can probably build a better system for the same price. Don't you think?

*2 black salad state= tube like solid state 

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