After a few posts you'll be able to personal message here, so keep posting!
In my opinion its never been a better time to be a frugal audiophile, especially with digital sources, but at the same time used digital-analog converters (DAC) have a hard time holding value as the technology has been improving so fast. Nowadays you can rip CD's into perfect compressed files (FLAC/ALAC) on your computer (I have a messily 5800 songs that take up 141 GB). A number of very good sub $300 DAC's are available (new).
Examples: I had a very decent $500 DAC/preamp/headphone amp (Emotiva DC-1) with remote and own active speakers (built-in power amps). The $300/pair (street prices cheaper) JBL LSR300's are very nice 2-way ported active monitors that can fill a medium sized room or be used on a desktop.
