Newbie to the awesome audiophile world

i have been on this journey for a little over 2 years. speakers requiring
amp requiring receiver upgrade, tube preamp, dedicated Dac, cd player,
Cd player mod, tube preamp mod, speaker upgrade, cable upgrade, new preamp. blah,blah blah. sounds really great now.
if I was staring again?
start with speakers again, but with consideration to room size and volume you like to or can listen to. Some inexpensive setups can sound great at 
modest volume, but crank it up to 'party level' and it becomes a mess.
if most of your listening is digital / streaming then build your system around a hard drive and good DAC. there is so much music out there - to
build a music library around cd's seems unpractical.   
there is a lot of great stuff on canuck audiomart and similar. See if you can trial stuff. Talk to different audio shops about pairings. take your time and be very wary of industry reviews - have you ever read a negative one? Industry reviews are a neat way to discover new music however.
Chow

If you  are going to get in this hobby seriously, you must get top line equipment, if you just want to listen sound just sound so stay where you are now. Because there is nothing between, the ladder has many runs , and addiction to reach the top will be exhausted. 🙂

Good advice from @mossyrocks and while I agree that collecting CDs is not practical per se, I am one who still thinks it is a good idea. And I'm still collecting. CDs are cheap. There is great data out there on what the good recordings are. There are tons of them available. And once you buy it you own it. And for music that you actually own I do not think there is a lower price option than used CDs. Not saying anyone _needs_ to go down that path, but I would not discount it either.

I do not purchase a CD for everything I listen to but I do purchase one for everything that would be on my long term "playlist". I do books the same way. Kindle or iPad is fine for light reading I'm not likely to come back to, but for the stuff I consider important.....I get the hard back.

+1 n80  Great advice 
Steve Guttenberg has a YouTube clip on audiophile systems for less than $2500. I think you pick your speakers first, then an integrated amp that will drive them, then a CD player and then a DAC (or a combined CD transport and DAC). If you are wanting to stream, then a Bluesound streamer/DAC would be a good choice. Schitt products are great bang for the buck if you want to buy new. But I applaud your willingness to buy used as you will get you more for your budget.  Consider ELAC speakers. I personally would look for a quality two way that gets down close to 40 Hz on the low end. Forget a turntable at this time. If I had to do it over again, not sure I would go down the analog path.