Welcome on board, I'm based in Liverpool too.
Over the last 6 or 7 years after reading a lot of forums and attending a few bake-offs my system has changed hugely. I've still not spent masses of cash but I think I've generally bought well and in terms of what I'm hearing my system is in a different league now.
Happy to demo my gear to give you an idea, just drop me a PM.
Technics SL1210 with
SME IV Arm & AT OC9XML,
Firebottle modded Tron Convergence Phono Stage,
Bluesound Node 2i, Technics SL DZ 1200 CD
Denon PMA1700ne amp
Yamaha NS1000M Speakers.