mostly Croft

[eksiil]

I've been a very incidental poster over the years, being mostly a browser by nature. seeing as a short burst of posting activity seems to have netted me signature privileges and an upgrade from "new member" to "member," however, the time seems to have come to take things to a new level. what better way to do that I suppose than to offer up a few photos of my system (taken with an iPad, so don't expect too much).

sometime in the previous decade I became aware of the existence of Croft. liked what I saw and read. I'd bought a full set of Alchemist Kraken boxes in 2001 and got sucked into the hobby slowly. my first Croft piece was a Vitale preamp, at some point I acquired a Series 7. then a Micro 25. between the Vitale and Micro 25 came a Fletcher 0.3, which got fleshed out with a Cartridge Man Conductor tonearm and a Music Maker III (I'd had a Rega P3 previously). then I bought a Leak Troughline III GTA (featuring the non-audiophile version of the Graham Tricker decoder). then my last piece of Alchemist, the APD9 CD player, got replaced by a Wadia 121 DAC & a Vecteur D-2.2 transport (which I swapped for my now redundant AudioMods V tonearm).

then a big step forward last year: saw a Mega Micro II on ebay which failed to sell. contacted the seller, secured it, had it sent to Glenn Croft, invested quite a bit of money into its overhaul. a couple of months later bought a 7R and sent it along with my Series 7 to be upgraded into 7R monos. also bought a pair of Usher Mini Dancer 2 DMDs just before I got the 7Rs (had Opera Quintas before). they go low, they go high, they do credit to the valvey midrange.

there's an ineffable allure to playing your music through bespoke equipment. Glenn Croft is everything I've read people say he is and then some more. I've also had some incredibly pleasant experiences communicating with Len Gregory, Jeff Spall, John Wright (& there are others).

end of story.

well OK there's been a fair bit of tube rolling going on at all times. I like what I have in the various machines right now (Brimar & Philips Miniwatt NOS ECC83s, Tung-Sol black plate & Philips ECG NOS 12BH7As, not to mention the Mullards in the TLIII & mostly Mullards in the Mega Micro II PSU).

these days I mostly listen to FM radio. the uncompressed sound coming through a total of 30 valves is something to behold even without a Galaxie aerial. but the party pieces are well-recorded 45 RPM singles played at full blast, which have yet to fail to produce a silly grin on the face of whoever's sat in the listening seat.

to pictures:

the system (the planks have warped, but all the heavy DIY wood has brought a serious improvement to the sound. i'm looking at replacing the planks with 300 year old oak. seriously.):


the Croft Mega Micro II preamp section


inside the preamp:


inside the Croft Mega Micro II PSU (12 valves all told...)


the 7R monos side by side


inside one of the 7R monos


the turntable & the tone arm:


the tuner:


the transport:


one of the speakers (the white streaks are specks of dust in a beam of sunlight. really):


forgot the DAC, but it looks the same as all Wadia 121s. mine sits on tennis balls.

OK, a bonus pic with the DAC in it: