Novice looking for advice

lotsa great stuff for sale here used... demo everything you can but i rarely buy new unless firesale priced. if you have the $ it is your call tho. why macintosh is one question... and as noted, do you really think seperates is wise as a beginner? jmo. keep it simple and find a guy who can get you farther down the learning curv before you start spending big money. a 'guru' of sorts will save huge amnt of time and money and headache.

First, let me thank everyone for your responses, I really appreciate all the input I can get. To answer a couple of questions I would like to keep my budget around $10k but I’m not locked into that and my upper limit is $20k. I’d prefer to spend less. My goal is to purchase a system that sounds good to me, secondly since this will be a part of my family room and I’ll be looking at it on a daily basis I’d like it not to be too hard on the eyes.

I listen to all types of music but probably more acoustic and smooth jazz than anything. There is so much stuff on the market and my experience and knowledge is limited. I’m also living in a rural town in Virginia which makes shopping around a challenge. Stores in the northern VA area are a two to three hour drive each way and it’s not like they carry all of the product lines that I’d like to compare. As I mentioned in my initial post I did like the Linn Akurate 242 speakers but that particular dealer carried primarily Linn products making it difficult to listen to the speakers with a variety of amplifiers. I’ve been to another store that carried Macintosh components but not the Linns. Their main speaker line was B&W which also sounded great. The B&W’s were physically quite a bit larger and seemed to sound better when cranked up a bit. I generally don’t listen at high volume levels.

Rather than having a salesperson tell me what is best for me when his opinion will be affected by the commission he makes, I chose to solicit the advice of the experienced and knowledgeable group that participates in these forums and has nothing to gain.

Once again, all input is greatly appreciated.

As you stated living in a rural area will make it difficult for you to visit dealers so you can listen to a wide variety of equipment. However, with what you are budgeting you could easily buy various pieces of gear here on Audiogon and try them in your own home, which is preferable. Just be sure to pick up items that have good resale value. You can put together a great system buying used with your budget.

However, I will recommend you take the 2 - 3 hour drive to visit Deja Vu Audio in McLean, VA. Vu carries a lot of nice gear and is a great source of information. I bought my first true high end system from him.

BTW - you never did mention anything about your listening room. The room may actually influence the type of equipment you should buy, especially speakers.