Question: What are some of your best pieces of advise to someone new to the hobby?

Listen to a wide variety (technology and price), and don’t forget ’bang for the buck’. For example, your friend may fall in love with exotic speakers, but find that he can’t hear much difference between expensive and adequate amplifiers with those speakers. Conclusion, valid for him: "Don’t spend much on amps".

That’s exactly where I was when I got started: I couldn’t hear the difference between budget DIY electronics and ARC. A year later, that changed, but in he mean time I had legendary speakers, Magnepan Tympani 1A, immensely suitable as an anchor around which to build..

Now I’m in pretty deep and still can’t hear much difference between interconnects - so my investment in these remains very low. It’s a valid option FOR ME. YMMV.

@mtbiker29 possibly the best advise here. It took me a few years to appreciate how important room treatments are.

And you can apply that philosophy to many components of your system. Years ago Linn's message was "a cheap cartridge on a Linn sounds better than a expensive cartridge one on a lesser turntable"

In other words understand and learn about each component you are planning to add to your system and the role they play in the sound reproduction!

Best of luck in your journey!

Get a bicycle.  If you're going to sit, at least let it be useful.

The questions worth asking of your friend is how old is he? Does he already have a collection of CD-Vinyl Albums? Which is the main Source the system intending to have?

Once this is on the table, the individual can be directed to receiving demo's of differing systems with such a source. This will help them home in on a sonic that has attraction to them, as well understand the costs required and aesthetic that can be had. This is not too bad a place to leave the starter blocks from.

Whew enough to write a book here!

Here’s some more:

1. Keep an open mind.

2. Music is a contextual experience, listen in as many different environments as you can 

3. Music is an emotional experience, let your ears and heart be connected without losing your head

4. Find what you like and do more of it; the field is changing so there are always more options

5. Buying used is an upgrade option, with experience.

6. Find trustworthy sources of information and be careful of scams in this field.