Thoughts on the best bang for the buck

I don't know if it has enough power for the MG 12's but I've been very happy with the Decco I bought. It replaced some more expensive gear in an attempt to simplify things and the combination of sound quality and versatility are really impressive for the price.

I used it by itself during warm weather but am using it now as a DAC and preamp to drive a separate tube amplifier. The DAC is connected to both a DVD used as a transport and an Airport Express for streaming audio. I upgraded the single tube in the preamp section to a NOS Tesla 6922 and that made a slight but noticeable improvement.

I've owned integrateds from NAD, Rotel, Cambridge and Audio Refinement and I'll take the Decco over any of them. The build quality isn't as good as the much more expensive gear the Decco replaced but is comparable to the NAD and Cambridge gear. The DAC in it isn't quite as precise as the Benchmark it replaced but it's close enough and the price is amazing for what you get.

Yes, the Decco has preamp outputs and the Nova will have both preamp and line outputs so that it could be used as either a preamp and DAC or as a stand-alone DAC.

There's currently a lot of buzz about the quality of the DAC in the Nova but its introduction has been delayed until at least March so there's not much information about it yet. With more power, more inputs and outputs and the possibility of using the DAC separately, all for just $400 more than the Decco, it's bound to get a lot of attention when it does hit the street.

I doubt you'll find the Decco discounted anywhere and would recommend buying locally if you have a dealer. If you do need to buy online there are two dealers for the Decco I've had great experience with, MusicDirect and Underwood HiFi.

I ordered mine from MusicDirect because they had a refurbished unit listed. When it arrived the packing slip indicated it was a new unit rather than a refurbished one. When I called them about it they said it turned out they didn't have a refurbished in stock any more so they just sent a new one at the refurbished price. Most other places would have cancelled my order and asked if I wanted one at the new price. They didn't even contact me, just shipped a new one without asking.

The reason the Wadia-transport exists is to be able to bypass the internal amplifier and digital to analog converter in the iPod. When you're playing from the hard drive of your laptop and sending the signal either from USB or from a digital output you don't have that problem. If you use an analog output from the laptop, like a headphone jack, it will have already gone through a digital to analog conversion and some amplification and you won't get the advantage of the very good DAC in the Decco.