Croft or Audio Innovations

[The Grand Wazoo]

Poll added

[Arkless Electronics]

I had a Croft series 5 in for repair years ago and was distinctly unimpressed by it (my Leak Stereo 20 easily beat it) so I've voted for the A.I.
I haven't heard the series 7 though...
Art Audio and Trilogy have impressed me in the past

[DSJR]

I've directly compared the Croft Series 5 WHEN NEW to both Quad II's (mine and originals) and a Stereo 20. It's fine and better with modern speakers than any of the others for long term use. How it ages over twenty years I don't know, but funky as the Stereo 20 is, I'd not say it was overall as good. I HAVE seen later Croft 5's not assembled by Glenn and these were far more of a rats nest inside pre service (Amar had a lot to answer for in the mid 90's), so maybe it was one of these...

The AI 500 wasn't well made in the early days and I was shown the charred remains of certain resistor-wrapped caps to prove it at the time. Things did get better and by now, the assembly issues would have been sorted out long ago. I just don't like the over-soft 'valvey' treble and rather hazy style of reproduction, that's all, since detail seemed to be lost as well as solid-state 'grain' in the process. The little (300?) integrated with slanty top cover did similar as I remember..

[The Grand Wazoo]

The early Series 500 was an unreliable nightmare - I recalled on AoS a few years back that the return to factory rate was over 100% at one point because some went back twice! This was challenged by someone here but confirmed by Guy, who ought to know.
It did sound good when sorted out though & I was fairly tempted but as with Dave, I preferred the sound of the First Audio Amplifier and Second Audio Monoblocks. As stated above, matching was critical although I did hear them performing well with SD Acoustics speakers.

I haven't heard any of the modern Croft stuff, though I knew the old preamps well, so can't really comment.

[Arkless Electronics]

I've directly compared the Croft Series 5 WHEN NEW to both Quad II's (mine and originals) and a Stereo 20. It's fine and better with modern speakers than any of the others for long term use. How it ages over twenty years I don't know, but funky as the Stereo 20 is, I'd not say it was overall as good. I HAVE seen later Croft 5's not assembled by Glenn and these were far more of a rats nest inside pre service (Amar had a lot to answer for in the mid 90's), so maybe it was one of these...

The AI 500 wasn't well made in the early days and I was shown the charred remains of certain resistor-wrapped caps to prove it at the time. Things dod get better and by now, the assembly issues would have been sorted out long ago. I just don't like the over-soft 'valvey' treble and rather hazy style of reproduction, that's all, since detail seemed to be lost as well as solid-state 'grain' in the process. The little (300?) integrated with slanty top cover did similar as I remember..

I just found the series 5 to be overly "valvey" and soft sounding and a bit lacking in transparency and detail. It certainly wasn't awful or anything like that but my Stereo 20 easily beat it in these areas. It was more similar to the Quad II than the Leak...

There was nothing wrong with the build quality. This was around 1998 IIRC and it was probably a year or two old at the time.

[hifi_dave]

The early Series 500 was an unreliable nightmare - I recalled on AoS a few years back that the return to factory rate was over 100% at one point because some went back twice! This was challenged by someone here but confirmed by Guy, who ought to know.
It did sound good when sorted out though & I was fairly tempted but as with Dave, I preferred the sound of the First Audio Amplifier and Second Audio Monoblocks. As stated above, matching was critical although I did hear them performing well with SD Acoustics speakers.

I haven't heard any of the modern Croft stuff, though I knew the old preamps well, so can't really comment.

I can confirm the 100% failure rate of the early Series 500 but, to be fair to Audio innovations, they did run a very efficient exchange scheme.

The First Audio and Second Audio were interesting amps but they did require very careful matching with the whole system.

[DSJR]

I just found the series 5 to be overly "valvey" and soft sounding and a bit lacking in transparency and detail. It certainly wasn't awful or anything like that but my Stereo 20 easily beat it in these areas. It was more similar to the Quad II than the Leak...

There was nothing wrong with the build quality. This was around 1998 IIRC and it was probably a year or two old at the time.

I can only challenge this from my own listening to new ones at hifi dave's place twenty or more years ago. No softness or lack of transparency then I assure you. Indeed, the Albarry gear he had as well (pre/power and integrated) sounded softer/warmer toned if anything

The thing is, transformer coupled valve gear is dictated substantially in speaker matching by the output transformer and the best, low saturation ones are frighteningly expensive I believe. maybe I was able to hear the Series 5 on well-matched speakers? At the time, the Pro-Ac Response 2 was a favourite all-rounder and I remember Dave sold loads of Super-Towers at the time (these latter speakers suffer foam-rot sadly). We did play Epos ES14's too, since we both sold these and this is one model where every pair sounded and measured practically identical - thickness of pen-strolk stuff...

[Spectral Morn]

First and Second Audio's are very noisy and must be used with the matching series 1000 passive pre/active mm phono stage. I heard all of the above fairly recently with Audio Note cabling - not Snell speakers must admit I don't like these much though they do work very well with AI kit - and frankly I was totally underwhelmed by the lack of transparency and noise.

Now the Series 1000 mk3 mono amps are very good - sadly I sold my pair recently - not enough room to keep them.

The unreliability of AI Series 500s was down to the styling of the amp and lack of ventilation. Speaking with Eric Anderson once at an Audio World show, the designer told me how he lost the styling battle with Peter Q then MD of AI. Eric wanted a large, plain, highly ventilated box. He asked me was mine still working, which it was, and still is, and bar a few changes, better volume pot, better RCA (Tiffany's) connectors it is as standard. I thanked him for the design as the numerous hours of pleasure I had with that amp was something to be grateful for. I have only had one problem and that was caused by a valve blowing a resistor under the valve base - easy, cheap fix.

I worked for one of the biggest sellers of AI kit in the UK back in the late 80's early 90's and reliability was pretty good but there were reliability issues from time to time, mostly caused by EL34s failing and not the amps themselves though some used the amps in enclosed spaces and they did go pop because of that. Swap the EL34s for 6l6s or 5881s and a series 500 will be fine.

A friend of mine had his 500 repaired recently (one output transformer developed a fault) by AnthonyTD and frankly it is stunning.

Re Croft I know the stuff quite well and I do know there are from time to time reliability issues, but it is a very different sound to the AI 500.

The problem with what you are asking - again - is you are asking all of AOS to tell you what to get (that's how it reads) and really you must get a listen and then buy based on what you hear, not what any of us say as that is only valid in a limited way, our rooms, our music, our ears, experience, bias etc - hardly ideal way to buy kit.

I bought AI kit new at the time it came out, Series 300 and then Series 500 and had no qualms in doing so and working in that shop I saw all the problems with kit being stocked - I put my money where my mouth was.


Regards Neil