New to the game. Need some beginners advice.

You need to first learn what you like from your system. No two are alike and nobody else hears what you hear or prefer. Once you undertand that you can move forward. Buying gear that you can resell for your purchase price or make a profit is always a good way to hear what components sound like in your system unless you have an audio club or people close to you who will lend you there gear for you to hear in your system.

Books to me are a waste of time because they cannot teach you to hear. Become familiar with your favorite recordings and what they sound like on your system and then bring those recordings around to see how other systems make them sound. Bass, mid-range, high end extension, height and width of soundstage, depth of sound stage, top end air, placement of instruments and backing vocals, clarity, tone, etc. I like to use piano recording because if the componets cannot get that right I feel that I am wasting my time then. Listen to piano on SS gear and tube gear to see what I mean. You may perfer one over the other so go with what you like.

I heard my speakers no to long ago with a cheap NAD power amp and it sounded very good. My amp is way more expensive and much better but the NAD was musical and enjoyable also.

Happy Listening.

While books can't teach you to hear, or know what kind of sound you like; they can certainly help you avoid costly mistakes when assembling and putting together a system. "Read Read Read, it don't cost nothing to Read".

ill second that: Read Read Read Read...

orpheus is right, i would have saved a ton of money and time (and i certainly wouldnt have a few closets full of gear) if i had taken the time to "educate" myself on the basics. when i started , internet was ICQ for chat, on a 28k dial up connection.... and Netscape was the browser of choice (what ever happened to them?) so we didnt have google back then to key in the words "bad hi-fi" and get Bose as a top result.... no offense to those that think Bose if high end... i did too once upon a time.... and i still have my 901's in one of the closets... or maybe in under the house in the crawl space with my old pentium 286 with MMX technology!!!! whatever that was.... sigh!!!!

I wish to EXPAND a bit further on my rather negative comments made previously.
the real watershed moment for me was the day i bought a (used) pair of B&W 801 speakers. from then on, the music i had sounded much better - and in some cases WORSE. because of their far superior accuracy at reproducing nuances
that were always present but glossed over by my previous speakers i could hear so much more detail it was truly amazing. but then of course i had to resolve the problems raised by such a far superior transducer. a better DAC, a better preamp, a better transport (with a special digital interconnect), a levinson stereo amplifier (good Lord what a huge improvement over my SAE amplifier!). and finally wires (i went with audioquest at first). i remember coughing up $800 for a pair of used speaker cables- very necessary, and very difficult to work with garden hoses.
but as someone else mentioned here, piano recordings had a richness and clarity that helped me differentiate between the sound of one brand of piano from another. other instruments would leap from the speakers into the room. a Martin guitar would sound
so convincingly real and just like what i would hear when i got to play one in person. the female voice would no longer be a part of the "system" but would take on a life of its own. a really REALLY good system will take you step by step into the studio or the concert hall and sit you down with the people making the music.... AS LONG AS there is no crappy cheap electronics and/or a deaf engineer that screws up what you should be hearing.
i guess the final word on all of this is whether it becomes an "obsession" to get the best possible results OR at what stage you're willing to call it quits- which will vary for each one of us. as long as you can take the sound of a pair of $150,000 speakers in stride (or get freaked out and have to buy them), you must measure your ability to remain rational and objective as to how good they REALLY ARE, regardless of how wealthy you are (aren't).
like i said, stick to mid-fi. good night, sleep well...

If you are truly just getting started, do this:
get polk lsi15 speakers used for around 650 a pair, get a used or new harman kardon hk3490 receiver 299 new. get a marantz cd player cd5004 350 new. some well make 12 / 14 gauge wire off amazon, I got raptor. total around 1500 dollars. then listen for a while, not a week or a month but a year or more. buy music all the while. you now have a good system and a 'baseline' to compare any other equip with. and any time you don't like the sound, move the speakers back forth, side to side and up and down.
this will change the sound. Anyone tell you a more expensive piece will improve your sound, ask them how or why. good listening.