Finally stepping into the hobby after 30 years of watching from the sidelines


Ok, so I hope you are all ok with a longwinded post from a first time user of the forum.  I have been obsessed with vinyl and tubes since my dad played records for me as a 5 year old.  My wife and I are finally in a place that we can take the leap into the scene.  We want to grow our system over time and may even create 2-3 systems along the way as we have a bed and breakfast where we want to make analog part of the theme. 

We have made up our mind that our first speakers will be Vandersteen 2CE sigs.  That is about as far as we have gotten.  We definitely want to power them with tubes and have very little idea of where to start.  Obviously the mainstream option would be a Mcintosh mc275 and our local HiFi salesman would LOVE to sell us a pair of those.  However, we know that there are several cheeper/better options out there and would love some input from the board.  We'd like to keep the first amp under $3,000, but we aren't locked into that.  Keep in mind that we are ok starting with a single amp and then adding a second one along the way to mono them.  Also, we would love some help with a table/arm/cartridge!  One with an integrated phono stage is fine to start with and we would again be open to upgrading and adding a stand alone phono stage later on.  

We will be doing some electrical work soon to run a 40 amp fuse to the BnBs espresso machine and would be open to setting up a dedicated line for our main system at that time so that we can have clean power.  Has any one had any experience with this?  Any ideas or recommendations that you may have would be a big help here! 

Thank you all in advance, and we are really excited to finally be part of the scene! 
128x128cottguy
oleschool, in the loft space that I mentioned and with a listening position about 16-18 feet from the speakers, I was able to achieve (measured) a pretty solid 26hz.  With no subs!  The soundstage was absolutely huge and very stable and well defined.  My MG3A's were highly modified; but, still....I would not have believed bass response like that from Maggies.
Lol .. Rolls vs bently vs aston .. 
And frogman 26hz is impressive. I still loved my subs .. 
@inna, Not at all :-) We've had a busy couple of days with guests and honestly, I needed to step back for a few days and let some info and ideas sink in.  I've committed to not buying anything till after RMAF.  There are going to be several companies there with gear that we're interested in and I think it's best to audition as much as we can in our price range since we have an amazing 3 day long opportunity.  I have a lot of info to sift through, as you all have some awesome ideas that have got me thinking...  
I'll try to reply to all of the posts tomorrow :-)
If there is Ypsilon/Lansche room there - stay away from it as far as possible because after you hear that sound you won't want anything less, anything else. Absolare/Rockport is great too but very different - avoid. Lamm and Gryphon amps - big no-no as well.