Newbie to the awesome audiophile world

Rather cynical rok2id??

I truly cannot say that has been my experience over the years but maybe I have either just been lucky or asked the right questions.....

Ymmv

Good Luck on your Quest...listen ,listen, listen to as much equipment as you can before you lay out 2,000..But there is alot of good used equipment at killer prices...Once you decide  then look for used if it out of your price range..

Rather cynical rok2id??

Not my intent, but, you would think that with all these audiophiles and all this gear, there would consensus on something.   At least ONE thing.   And EVERYONE speaks their opinion with Authority.   What's a newbie to do?

My advice:  spend as little as possible until you have the experience to know for yourself.

Cheers

Read a lot, dont spend much, think, learn......

So I was/am in a similar budget room as he is. I started with a $350 rotel  995 preamp and 1050 amplifier, a pair of klipsch Cornwall verticals I got for about 700, techniques 1500 turntable for about 200, a shiitte modi 3 Dac 100, with a cheap $50 Bluetooth from Best Buy. 200.00 cables and an old but good sony cd player 200 and 150.00 power conditioner and surge protection.
Not the greatest set up but around 2000 bucks after searching and buying and selling Online for about a year or so. Since then I’ve added klipsch lascalas, corner horns, Heresys and various tube amps for other listening rooms.  It takes time and I’m slowly upgrading things as I go, for instance just added a beautiful Sota sapphire turntable that I get a great deal on and another luxman amp.
to me the best advice is to get Super Efficient high-quality old-school speakers a decent newer solid-state amp to start, good cables, a nice dac entry level like blue sound or similar and at least to start  with a run-of-the-mill turntable That won’t break the bank.  The high-efficiency speakers let You have a foot in both tube amplifier entry level stuff, and decent low wattage solid-state amps that won’t break the bank