Coming out of the blackhole called work...retirement

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

Congratulations !! I retired 18 months ago and am really enjoying it !
I also treated myself to a new system as a retirement gift to myself
 I wanted a high end system for a  not outrageous cost.   I chose the following :
Rogue Cronus Magnum 2 integrated , Golden Ear Triton Plus 2 speakers, Musical Fidelity V90 DAC , NAD CD player , Rega Planar 1 turntable
Best !!
Russ in  Pittsburgh PA 

You don't have to spend mega-bucks. Get a tube amplifier system-rogue audio, Prima Luna, or tubes4hifi--all good stuff. Some Vandersteen speakers, or Focal or Dali.  Or call Kevin at Upscale Audio--he will steer you where you want to go--he loves stereo--good guy.

Before you start spending money on gear, determine for yourself what kind of midrange and ’presentation’ you like. You may really like something like the disappearing act and clean presentation of a small Harbeth P3esr mated to a good single ended triode amp. Or other, more high efficiency speakers like Audionote; or horns, or single driver speakers. With or without a little subwoofer.  You may really prefer a paper cone midrange or soft dome to polypropylene or more exotic material (I do). If you’re in Australia, you are in a very good location to get some great deals on high(ish) end clones coming out of China - like a dartzeel clone or FM acoustics clones on ebay (both less than $1000). And also the tube integrateds like Line Magnetic, Cayin, etc. http://cattylink.com/ Finally, you should be able to find very good DACs as well, for equally cheap (less than $1,000) coming out of China and Singapore. Just do some reading and listen to as much as you can. Try to keep it simple and enjoy the journey. :)