I have been experimenting with HT for awhile now and have been pretty impressed but am anxious to experiment with a new music-only setup.
I will be starting from scratch so I am just looking for suggestions (speakers, amps, cabling, etc). Sorry if this is a bad question but all I will need is an amp, speakers, wire, and a cd player right?
The living room is fairly large (15' by 25') and I listen mostly to lounge, jazz, dance music.
With that budget if you happened to live in Australia I'd tell you to forget it if you want to be impressed. In the US then maybe you'll get a decent response or two. I hope so.
From a budget perspective (ie: not listening to these components paired first hand) here is an option:
NAD 352 Integrated Amp ($499), NAD 515Bee CDP ($299), and Wharfedale Diamond 8.3 floorstanders ($210). A few dollars over your budget, the speakers aren't very sensitive at 86db, and you have a relatively large room, but it meets the budget need. That being said, I have no clue how the synergy of the NAD components and Wharfedale speakers will sound. Maybe someone does? There are a few NAD internet vendors (Saturday Audio, Spearit Sound, etc) and STO Sound & Vision has the speakers.
Everyone will tell you to go and listen to components and speakers and buy what you like best. That's your best bet. Otherwise you may drop a grand on something and not like the way it sounds.
You can get very good results for $1000. Do some research and try to select all of the components (cd,amp,speakers) together, with each other in mind. There are some very good inexpensive amps, but you'll want to make sure you match what they do with what the speakers need. Just as an example, you could buy a Kingrex T20 amp for around $300, and you'd have a very nice little amp....but it won't drive power hungry speakers, or necessarily play loud in a large room. What it WOULD do is sound very nice with the right speakers, and a decent source.
You should also think about how much money you should spend on each component....ie...how much on the amp vs the speakers vs the cd player. My own suggestion would be to spend more on the source and amp, less on the speakers (upgrade later).....and go with Radio Shack/Wallmart speaker wire (just a few bucks and very good results) and a decent inexpensive interconnect like the Anti Cable, or Blue Jeans Cable ($100 or so).
You should also read about how to setup your sound room, so that you consider placement, and acoustics as part of your system. If your room is a mess acoustically, you can spend $10,000 and you still will be disappointed with the results.
If you can match up components that play well together you can get something that will surprise you, and your friends....for less than $1000. Spend wisely.
Are you adverse to going with used stuff? A used integrated amp and set of speakers is a pretty safe purchase. I'd stay away from used CD players, but that's just me.