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The rich and punchy sound of valve-based amplifiers is set to make a
comeback. Hi-fi maker Quad Electroacoustics of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, is
celebrating the millennium by reviving the mono valve amplifiers it launched in
the 1950s. Early hi-fi fans used to buy pairs of them to produce stereo, but
each unit delivered only 12 watts, which wasn’t enough to drive loudspeakers
designed for high-power transistor amplifiers. But the new Quad II-Forty
(http://www.quad-hifi.co.uk/ Quadclass1.htm) uses a more efficient transformer
to deliver 40 watts. The price should be less than that of second-hand
originals.