Glenn Croft is building amplifiers again! CroftAcoustics.co.uk

Hello All,

I am sure you all (and Marco) will be pleased to know that Glenn Croft has built his first amplifiers for over twelve months. Production is still a few months away, however I can tell you all that I have heard the prototypes and you can all be assured that the "Micro ethos" of nearly twenty years ago is back!

Giant killer performance on a budget is what you can expect very soon! See the pages I have put up at http://www.croftacoustics.co.uk/prototypes.html and http://www.croftacoustics.co.uk for more details.

Glenn will be watching the forum so let us know what you all think!

Best, Matt.

Excellent stuff, superb quality gear that Croft stuff.

Love the old-school, workman-like design. Doesn't have all its tubes on its face like the reproductive organs of a flower. Funny how different "affordable" can be. With the current exchange rate, that would cost me in the neighborhood of $5,600 + shipping. All things are relative, of course, but I'd call that very expensive.

Tim

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tfarney

Love the old-school, workman-like design. Doesn't have all its tubes on its face like the reproductive organs of a flower. Funny how different "affordable can be. With the current exchange rate, that would cost me in the neighborhood of $5,600 + shipping. All things are relative, of course, but I'd call that very expensive.

Tim

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Hi Tim,

The prototypes are of the second level products within the new range. Let me refer you to the home page of the site www.croftacoustics.co.uk where I detail all five new products to come with prices starting at £700 GBP for the pre and the same amount for the power amp.

Where in the world can you buy hand built amplifiers without PCB's that sound as good as Croft for £700? In hifi circles that is "affordable".

Regards, Matt.

Hi Matt,

You know how pleased I am about Glenn being back 'in the zone', so please use AOS any way you need to promote the new range.

I'll hopefully have a listen to some prototypes when Glenn is off the cricket circuit ;)

Hey, I don't know what all the PFM-ers have against dual mono volume controls - lazy gits! You and I both know how passionately Glenn feels about this aspect of the design. It sounds better and he will always put performance before convenience - end of.

Enjoy your curry tonight, mate, and pass on my regards :)

Marco.

P.S I'll be writing a piece on the mods I've had carried out to my CX shortly. Just mad busy with work ATM.

Matt,

re affordability I noticed the German website still has a pdf pricelist with a Croft amplifier for 60,000 Euros that's nearly £ 48,000 !!

They do say that Croft cannot currently build amplifiers due to "personal problems"

PS Actually the German is "personelle Probleme" ie that could mean problems with the personnel

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Originally Posted by Marco

Hey, I don't know what all the PFM-ers have against dual mono volume controls - lazy gits! You and I both know how passionately Glenn feels about this aspect of the design. It sounds better and he will always put performance before convenience - end of.

Enjoy your curry tonight, mate, and pass on my regards :)

Marco.

P.S I'll be writing a piece on the mods I've had carried out to my CX shortly. Just mad busy with work ATM.

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When I owned a Super Micro SMA I fitted finely calibrated, skirted knobs in place of the awful originals and drilled the front panel to take a tiny pin-head red LEDs as markers. It helped with channel matching... a bit.

Down with twin knobs!

If I can find a photo of the old SMA I'll post it.

No twin knobs please but I'm genuinely interested in a valve pre that will see off my solid state Spectral DMC-15. I tried a Glasshouse TVC passive and whilst it was more organic it was rather shut-in both spatially and dynamically compared to the Spectral. It was also less dynamic to the point of a slight shoutiness even if this was without any real hardness as such.

I'm looking for the dynamics, timing and soundstaging of the Spectral with perhaps more natural sounding vocals. The Spectral is very, very good indeed and is probably worth around £2000 on the s/h market. It was £4700 new back in 2001. The latest version of it is £4800.

Basically 2k is my top-line budget for a pre.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Togil

Matt,

re affordability I noticed the German website still has a pdf pricelist with a Croft amplifier for 60,000 Euros that's nearly £ 48,000 !!

They do say that Croft cannot currently build amplifiers due to "personal problems"

PS Actually the German is "personelle Probleme" ie that could mean problems with the personnel

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Hi Togil,

How do I explain this so that it makes any sense? I don't pretend to know the full history (I haven't really enquired but here is my version after knowing Glenn and Amar for over a decade).

Around eighteen years ago Glenn sort of withdrew from the world. The reasons are best known to Glenn and are personal and private. We are not talking any sort of health issue, just a large dose of disdain and dismay for society and the status quo in which we all live. I feel that way myself (often) as I am sure we all do from time to time.

At that time Glenn was active producing valve amps, attending the occasional show, he was happy running a souped up Porsche Carrera, and had a wide variety of interests but largely would want to keep himself to himself and running a very public amplifier business was not entirely compatible with his needs a that time.

In stepped Amar Biswas who offered to be a voice to the outside world for Croft acoustics and eventually evolved it into Eminent Audio. Amar created a mystique around Glenn and even shielded Glenn in many ways from the outside world in order to further his own ends. Glenn was happy to leave the running of the business to Amar in exchange for an easy life and this became a habit which was difficult to break. Over the years Glenn got a rep for being a recluse and some sort of flawed genius (none of which was true at all).

Glenn is famous around the world for what he does but is simply not interested in the attention he gets. That is all there is to be said of the man. Amar exploited this for years and profitted enormously out of the Croft brand. Granted, Amar worked hard on marketing but ultimately it was Glenn building each of the thousands of amps which exist. This continued until last year when unexpected traumatic events (which I will not detail) caused Glenn to take stock of the last couple of decades.

Glenn simply announced that he wanted to scale down production of amplifiers so that he could spend some time on himself, go on a few holidays, pursue interests which he had sacrificed for most of the previous two decades whilst holed up in a small workshop in a house in Erdington building amplifiers day after day year after year.......

Amar terrified that his magic carpet ride was about to end (which included the manufacture of insanely priced amplification for the German market)refused to have any of it and that led to a breakdown in the relationship between the two directors of EA and now the reformation of Croft Acoustics.

Amar was never anything without Glenn and never will be. A "Parasite" would be a kind word to describe the man. Ownership of EA and it's assets will be decided in the high court early next year and Amar Biswas will play no further part in the future of Croft Acoustics.

As for the price list Pdf listed on the German Input Audio site.........

This is a really funny story and a testament to the delusions of Amar Biswas. I and Glenn were on the computer at my home about ten months ago and came across the same PDF. With utter disbelief I turned to Glenn and asked "Whats a Duad?" Glenn looked at me blankly "A Duad" I said "Yeah a 60,000 Euro amp on this EA price list called a Duad." Glenn took a brief look at the PDF and replied "Fucked if I know, it must be something that, that cunt dreamed up!" we both looked at the other items and cracked up laughing.

Beyond the one Om-Seti that was built and a couple of ten grand absolut1's nothing like that was even conceived by Glenn and there are certainly no prototypes. All a figment of Amar Biswas's imagination.

If you ever see the little man be sure to pass on my regards,

Matt.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marco

Hi Matt,

You know how pleased I am about Glenn being back 'in the zone', so please use AOS any way you need to promote the new range.

I'll hopefully have a listen to some prototypes when Glenn is off the cricket circuit ;)

Hey, I don't know what all the PFM-ers have against dual mono volume controls - lazy gits! You and I both know how passionately Glenn feels about this aspect of the design. It sounds better and he will always put performance before convenience - end of.

Enjoy your curry tonight, mate, and pass on my regards :)

Marco.

P.S I'll be writing a piece on the mods I've had carried out to my CX shortly. Just mad busy with work ATM.

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Hi Marco,

Thanks, looking forward to hearing more about your upgraded Charisma X I heard that it is a bit special now. My Epoch will be going away at some point to get similar treatment when all the new stuff is developed.

The PFM'ers...... I know. They have been bustin my chops all day. Gotta love them yanks, quite frankly there are more importants things to worry about than dual mono, so there will be no sleep lost there.

Prototypes

I really only had access to them for an hour myself and they are likely to be doing the rounds amongst industry bods for some time to come so can't really make any promises. Glenn is flat out on upgrades and mods at the moment and then its back up north for the Cricket in a week or so.

The curry was nice thanks and it was Glenn's turn to pay so all in all a good night.

Speak soon, Matt.