Coming out of the blackhole called work...retirement

Listen to PS AUdio gear. Great prices from a great company, American made.

Don't get sucked into the cable hype. They are high profit items pushed by dealers. A $2000 amp does not need a $500 cable.

Congrats on retirement, I’m a few years behind ya!  I would agree with suggestions here of “let your ears decide what’s best for you”. My wife and I flew from Michigan to Colorado to the RMAF show and had a blast listening to all that’s current. We already had a new system but was looking for improvements. Ended up falling in love with some Zu Audio Soul Superfly speakers but I just couldn’t pull the trigger as they were a bit more than what we recently purchased. Well, my wife didn’t tell me until we got back home but SHE bought them!  A while later we went to another Audio show in Toronto and ended up finding a TT we really like(German made Acoustic Solid brand). My wife fell in love with the beautiful bubinga plinth so we picked that up. So, the moral of the story is... bring your wife with you!
Rick

OP:  If you are really willing to start from scratch, there are so many angles to consider and places to start - and twice as many opinions!  You are likely to get many suggestions that have merit and are worth considering. Here's mine (distilled down to four suggestions):

1.  Take your time (as someone else suggested).
2.  I agree with the conventional wisdom (?) that the two most important components of a SYSTEM are the room and the speakers.  So, spend a disproportionate amount of your budget on your main speakers and setting up and treating the room (to work with the speakers you chose and vice versa)
3.  If you have stereo and surround sound ambitions, focus (effort and $$) on getting the 2, 2.1 and 3.1 channels to sound the best they possibly can; and then round out the effects channels and equipment (and add subwoofers, if need be). I believe that  L, C and R channels are the most important channels, in terms of sound quality and impact in a HT/surround system.
4.  Leave room in the budget for speaker and room correction software/digital processing (whether it comes in the form of computer software, components, built into speakers or some combination thereof).  Not everyone agrees, but I think modern speaker/room correction options are really great for tweaking and fine tuning a room/system and getting it just right.

Have fun and keep us posted on your progress, please.

Scott