Thoughts on the best bang for the buck

I would also go for a second hand Musical Fidelity, either A3.5 or the 150w/ch A300.

I have been wondering about the Decco amp as well. I have just purchased a pair of Vandersteen 1C's and am looking to replace an old Onkyo amp. This is a secondary system that will have a Squeezebox attached to it.
Someone suggested a little NAD integrated amp - those of you who are familiar with DECCO - would this be a good match for the Vandys? I do like the idea of a built in DAC as mine is a very old Theta.....

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.

BAsed on what sfar said, it looks like the Decco or perhaps eve Nova as pre-amp outputs that enable it to be used with a separate power amp. That would excellent!

You could start with Decco or Nova and then upgrade with a separate high power power amp later if needed.

In this scenario, I could easily also recommend the Musical Fidelity A3CR I use in my system or other MF power amp equivalent as the amp upgrade if needed.

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.