The answer is much simpler, how coincidental can it be that the right hand channel of my amp (It's older than my daughter and she's 21 this year) fails the same day as I snap the phono/RCA on my Empeg! It was only this evening when I put Winamp on whilst I was doing some work on the PC that I realised that I had the same fault.
So the only problem I have is occasional use of the phono sockets. I'll be back to you Cris, but don't volunteer unless you're completely confident - I presume that the phono socket is a bog standard PC mount phono socket?
- and thanks for your usual impeccable attention to the problem Tony.