Buy a new stereo music system - Which manufacturer

My impression is that some audiophiles here are trying to lead you down a path with their well-meaning advice that completely misses your requirements. Just my impression. Maybe it would be in your interest to say what you have used for listening to music so far and what you want to replace now (I believe 11ant already asked that). It would be pointless to try to sell you a "system" with separate speakers if a good, small cube speaker would do just fine.

And yes, even a Sonos Play:1 produces decent sound that can fill a 25 sqm room. It’s clear that it doesn’t deliver the quality of a €1500 system. But if you don’t need or hear that quality, you would a) be misled and b) have wasted money.

Just as an example: I used to have nice Canton Ergo 90s with matching separate components. They’re now with my brother-in-law. For metal, punk rock, and grunge, one or two Play:1s are actually enough for me. My over 250 CDs stand on the shelf and look good, but my usage habits have completely changed. I stream from my phone, NAS, or a streaming service (Spotify, Amazon Music), and radio via TuneIn or AmazonPrime works fine. For that, I personally don’t need a €1000 system with the corresponding space requirements, but two small, inconspicuous cubes that in no way fall short of the sound of a compact system—in fact quite the opposite.

And one last note. Yamaha was at least 25 years ago a manufacturer among many, and by no means as great as you might get the impression here. That may have changed. The best ratings in the lab (where else would you get objective comparisons) were usually for Harman/Kardon, Denon, Pioneer, Technics ... Yamaha was BACK THEN less one of the top brands, but that may have changed. I don’t care for the reasons mentioned above, other things have become more important to me than distortion factors and tracking errors [emoji6] Just as an addition to complete the picture.

For 300 - 400,- € each, you can get good bookshelf speakers (that's what you call speakers that are about 1/3 to 1/2 as tall as floorstanding speakers, but with depth and width roughly matching those of floorstanding speakers). Many good manufacturers offer these. Canton, Nubert, Dali, B&W... Before you buy more expensive speakers, it's worth setting up the listening room first. But for almost everyone, that's where it ends.

For the same 300 - 400,- €, you can get amplifiers (Yamaha, Harman Kardon, Denon...) that leave nothing to be desired. You only need more expensive amplifiers if the speakers were either very, very cheap, or you want to use insane power distortion-free (carnival floats). More expensive amplifiers do not, however, produce better sound!

So – now you have two options: If the last 10% don't matter to you, order the stuff online and enjoy the beautiful music over the holidays. If you want to pay a bit more attention to your own hearing, go to a good hi-fi store with two CDs and have them blind! demonstrate the three, four, five pairs of speakers in your price range.

Have fun!

My impression is that some audiophiles here with their well-intentioned advice are leading you down a path that completely misses your requirements.

That is probably true. So far, we had a compact system, which was not really compact. So an all-in-one, which took up quite a bit of space in the living room with two fairly decent speakers. Upstairs we still have a somewhat better system with separate components, which is supposed to stay up here. The compact system downstairs shall now be replaced by something modern. Unfortunately, I am so clueless that the first salesperson will probably take advantage of me without mercy. Musically, I do have my standards – but I probably don’t hear the difference between various manufacturers or only in a direct comparison. In the end, it probably comes down more to the speakers. I’m already satisfied if the device technically delivers what it’s supposed to and the buttons don’t fall off after one year or individual functions don’t gradually fail. That’s what happened with smaller systems from well-known manufacturers.

With the budget, I would put almost everything into the speakers. The playback can be arranged, for example, via an Ipod. This gives you online radios, streaming services, your own media library, etc. You can import CDs into the media library on the PC/notebook, so you don't always have to dig them out and insert them.

I bought a used Ipod Touch (~80€) for music playback in the basement. Along with a small amplifier module from the Far East with a DA converter (24Bit/192kHz) (<100€).

However, I would strongly advise against letting anyone sell you any hi-fi high-end voodoo nonsense. Expensive cables, etc. That is simply total rubbish and money thrown away.

With the budget, I would put almost everything into the speakers. Playback can be done, for example, via an iPod.

You are good. I don’t have an iPod after all. :) What I also don’t want is to have to start up or connect a computer every time just to listen to some music. Then I might as well just keep listening to music from the computer. It already annoys me that the TV takes almost 30 seconds to turn on.

You can buy an iPod :) And you don't need a computer, that's why the iPod. I don't even take the iPod in my hand, but do everything very nerdy via voice control.