[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by Ted Kendall

I don't think the Texan was that bad as a design - I used one quite happily for some time - but its very ubiquity meant the good, the bad and the indifferent had a go at making one. I'd qualify as indifferent at best in this context - Dad sorted mine out in the end, but this was a long time ago!

No, foibles aside, the Texan was all right for what it was, and spawned, indirectly, other hi fi units in the same size and shape of box. There was the Nelson-Jones tuner - a decent performer perhaps let down by the lack of a birdie filter; the Wireless World Dolby unit, which worked well; and even the Integrex Ambisonic decoder. At the time, these would have formed the nucleus of a decent set-up. If you wanted more power, you could go for the Linsley Hood amplifier (the 1973 design), which used a similar case.

It was relatively easy to make a marked improvement to the Texan by changing the 741s to something more suited to audio use. Plus, if you hadn't fitted it right from the start, use the upgraded toroidal transformer. The boffins in our labs at Thorn did loads of mods that they allowed me to gleefully copy! I've still got it albeit in a bit of state having been handed back to me not working following a loan many years ago to friend.