[Radio Wrangler]

The amplifier is where the silly money is, so the chances of finding one at an affordable price are not good.

You could build a valve amp of a comparable nature and dodge the parts that are also hyped out of reach. The Williamson design with 807s would be a possibility.

Howerver, it may be heretical to say it, but there isn't really anything magical about valves. Very good results really can be achieved with transistors. It's just not as easy and any attempts at cutting corners are usually more devastating. The differences really become audible when amplifiers are driven hard, into compression or clipping, and the valves normally win.

The solution is to use what looks like a ludicrously over-powered transistor amp, so that it is used a long way below clipping levels. With any decent design, this will give you a clean sound. If you want a bit of mellowness, fiddle with the tone controls.

You could find any one of a number of decent amps which would do the job for you as a stand-in until the right decca amp shows up.

To cheer yourself up, just think that whoever now has the amplifier which was ripped out of your unit is probably one of the fools who worries about listening to his equipment and is condemned like the flying dutchman to roam eternally, never being content, never finding happiness. Always having to scrape money together for the next hyer-expensive thing. He probably has ulcers.

David