What would be your advice for building a system for the first time?

[ChrisAZ]

When I returned to the audio hobby after a couple of decades away, I found myself relearning much that I had known before and learning afresh about new technologies, products and manufacturers that had come on to the scene. I also found myself making many of the same expensive mistakes I made in the past – buying components somewhat willy nilly before I had retuned my ear and remembered what I preferred in music reproduction. I had no plan and it showed. It’s also much more difficult to self-educate now than it was 3 decades ago because there are far fewer bricks and mortar stores where you can audition equipment (much less try it at home), although there are new tools available (like the internet) that make the process somewhat less daunting. I’ve now developed more of a plan and am now more proactive than reactive in adding and subtracting components.

So if you had a close friend who wanted to build a competent high end system from scratch for the first time, who didn’t have unlimited resources and cared more about sound quality than bling, aside from telling them to adopt your tastes and copy your system what guidance would you give them? Go to concerts and clubs and listen to lots of live music? Start by investing more on the source or speakers than other components? Try to achieve balance in all the components? Vinyl vs. digital? Tubes vs. SS? As I read the comments on this forum I’ve noticed all sorts of taste in components but also all sorts of approaches to system building. So what would your advice be?