I think Deep Water Culture is the best beginner hydro setup. Having done flood and drain, ebb/flow, and dwc I definitely found dwc to be the easiest. Aside from changing res water every couple weeks, as long as there is a lot of air and controlled temps you can pull a lot in no time. I dont know what type of scale you want or if youve grown in soil before, but if your just trying to do a few plants there are selfcontained dwc systems that cost about $100 to build well. Changing the res is a bitch, but it only needs to be done every 2 weeks usually and you can easily setup a draincock on the bottom.

But if your trying to do a lot of plants, then DWC is a bad beginner setup because to do it efficiently is expensive (read recirculating dwc) and a lot can go wrong. Simplicity is key.