New to the game. Need some beginners advice.

Buy or find in your library a book called, "The Complete Guide to High End Audio" by Robert Harley. It's an excellent resource you'll want to have on your coffee table. That's where mine is. On-line articles and reviews are great but nothing replaces sitting down and studying a book like this to set you straight. It does explain all of the components in an audio system, how they work, how much you should spend, etc. It does not endorse any brands but it's more like a text book. Study one chapter at a time. Trust me on this.

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.