Moving to separates

Cayin/TAD TA150/100w monos.Will you need a phono stage?What speakers??

Nice to see you back Tom/Tpsonic. Adcom is as good of a place as any for you to start, Ivyinvestor. Lots of us started with Adcom. i started with Audio Alchemy, which is abotu the same thing, but just a tad more lush sounding (and a bit more unreliable). rotel, parasound also make separates in the same price range, and should hold their values well at resale time. A little farther up the food chain is Bryston, McCormack (SMc audio), and Odyssey. Klaus sells the Odyssey stuff direct, so the prices are reasonable, but still higher than used Adcom separates.

You can look at the used prices of the above brands and seel what you are comfortable spending. $250 for a preamp (without phonostage) and $500-650 for a power amp (1200-1600 retail) would be a nice place to start at. You can spend more if you like, but that will give you a taste of what decent gear can do. you can also spend less, but you'll have to shop very carefully. It's a lot harder to find a decent $200 amp, for example.

You might aim a little higher. A Classe 35 preamp now advertised for $450 is a great bargain on which to build a very nice system. Balanced I/O too, for future compatibilty/upgrades. Or maybe the CAP 80 for $700, and no interconnect required. It might make sense to take the 2nd step first. Just my .02, good luck in your quest.

You don't necessarily need separates.

For tubes, you could get, say, a self biasing Primaluna integrated. It now comes with a mm phono board option ($160). Or a Cayin.