New system on a budget

£500 is not a great budget, you may want to look at some Richer sounds systems which canbe good value. If you want to save a bit of money you could get a £100 blu-ray dvd player instead a cd player. That would leave you £400 for amp and speakers. Or you could add a bit more money and get better speakers. With your budget I maybe inclined to get some ex-demo or slightly used gear.

the marantz range are getting really good reviews all round, the budget range in richer sounds are only 300 quid ish for the cd and amp, leaving a bit left for some q acoustics speakers and some half decent interconnects! 

If you have the physical room, have a listen to better speakers and cut corners on the amp and source.

Thanks for the replies so far. I think I have settled on auditioning the Q Acoustic 2010i/2020i.

Has anyone listened to the Onkyo C7030 CDP? Also within budget and seems to have good specs.

I have also seen the Onkyo A9030 at a good price too, if that would be a good match for the Q Acoustics?

As said before I would spend a bit more on speakers like Wharfedale 121s or MA BX2 which are both about £230.

Hi. Just a question, why so against used gear? For limited budget, such as mine up to now, you can get far more for your money used. I put together a cracking CD/amplifier/Speakers combo for only £165.00 (the components are listed in my signature) The speakers are probably the weakest link but for that money its still very respectable sounding.

Have a look on ebay for ideas and if youve got a local shop that sells used hifi gear go and have a browse

Used would definitely be my recommendation to, or at least in part.  Shop carefully and you'll land some great stuff.  My current system has a Marantz CD 52 MkII SE, which is near mint and came to my door for less than £50.  My current amp's a belter - huge thing! -and again near mint.  Bought off Ebay for about £120.  A Sansui AU-217 was mine, serviced and delivered a couple of years back for £33.  It's still in service.  Chebby, one of the other forum regulars on here landed some Mordaunt Short MS20i Pearls speakers for about £35 and again these were barely used.  

Shop clever and buy shrewdly and you'll get a great system with plenty left over.

I agree used gear is great value, looking upgrade my system and struggling to find something better even at £2,000+.

i've got to agree that going 2nd hand can be the better choice, i spent some time slowly picking up different arcam products from ebay, i paid 110 quid for a dv88 , had it around 18 months and sold it for around the same money, i then got a dv79 (with hdmi) for 114 quid, then bought an arcam a70 brand new for 240 quid, ex demo. finally i added an arcam p85/3 power amp for 240 quid.. my speakers i bought new with a five year warranty for 300 quid, mission m35i. all of which i spread over a few years.. 

i initially started off with separates using a cambridge audio a1 and a technics cd player, bought for 60 quid for both of them. i plugged in an old pair of technics speakers from a mini seperates system i'd bought in the 1990's, and i was hooked. 

i've been messing around with hifi ever since, i've bought hundreds more cd's since i bought seperates, because you really can hear the difference. 

the first thing (and only thing since) i bought new, and full price were the speakers. everything else i've sought out for a bargain. to be honest, thats half the fun.

I am not adverse to looking into 2nd hand gear - I just want to get a great sound - if I was to go down the 2nd hand route, what should I be looking at?

I have read on here that some of the older Sony ES and Rotel amplifiers review favourably, but I wouldn't know where to start with CDP/speakers...

cd player I would look at Marantz players, very popular and plenty around, I have a 63SE and it is great you can pick them up for about £190 (refurbished) or more modern cheaper ones. Not sure about speakers, some of the Missions are very good value. Maybe have a look on ebay for some ideas.

I rate the Sony ES amps very highly, and are excelent value having used the TA-F670ES and TA-F770ES which are about £150 and £250 respectively.

For similar price, you could look at stuff like the Primare A20, Restek Challenger, Rega Brio3 which are all in that same price bracket.

Speaker wise, I have similar music taste to yourself and found both my current Kef 104/2 and Acoustic Energy AE2 are within budget if you look around. Other speakers I have had which may do it for you are the Rega R3, Kef XQ1, ATC SCM7, ATC SCM10, Kord Tornado / Vulcan. All can be had for £300 and under.

For CD players, I would generally 'skimp' on that area first, and invest in the amp/speakers first, to get the best value IME.

For speakers though, I think AE2's would be right up your street with that sized room.

I’ve noticed on various other forums people almost universally raving about a system at the Scalford show consisting of pair of Q Acoustics 2010i speakers, I think on the end of a chucky Song amp. Now I briefly heard these on the end of the Denon micro system (D38 or something?) and they sounded woeful so I think careful partnering and  an amp with plenty of grunt is crucial, I’m now tempted to buy a pair just to see what they are capable of doing on the end of my amp.

Yup, Richards Sony TA-F770ES/Q-Acousics 2010i combo with the Pioneer PD-71 at Scalford was a lovely combo, may find it hard to fill anything other than small room or low volumes with the OP's music taste.

I spent quite some time on eBay last night and saw (what I thought) were some bargins - a Sony TA-FB930R QS amp for under £100 and a TA-FB730R also less than £100 and both look in mint condition. Are these Sony amplifiers well regarded?

There also seems to be some huge Sony STR-DA1200ES AV amps available at seriously cheap money, I know they're a 7.1 channel amp but you seem to get an awful lot for your cash!

Speaker wise I will look around for some AE2's - CDP wise I wouldn't want to look at anything too old, if only because the laser/tray mechanisms can fail (from what I have read about), but do people think I can get away with getting a cheaper (and less superior) unit for now? I have quite a lot of CD's (400+) and I am not interested in streaming etc.