Exclusive pictures of the new amps from Croft!

[Covenant]

Are the new Croft amplifiers available now?

[MartinT]

Will there be an MM phono pre only product? I don't need or want another main preamp.

[hifi_dave]

The new Croft Micro 25 pre and Series 7 power-amp are available now and sounding great. The price is £700 inc VAT per unit.

The pre has an excellent MM phono stage inbuilt and at the price I doubt you will find better. You can view it as a great phono stage with a pre thrown in.

Glenn may also introduce a MM phono stage but is not 100% sure about this as the Micro 25 is so good.

[MartinT]

The Micro 25 is unsuitable as I need a fully balanced preamp. I'm not going down the single-ended path again.

[matodono1]

I'm a newcomer to The Art of Sound and a latecomer to this thread but I would like to add my endorsement of these new Crofty amps.

I knew they would be good because in all the years I have known Glenn, he has never made a duff product. However, I wasn't expecting great things when I heard they would be £700 a piece and saw how small they are and then felt the tinny lids but the looks are deceiving - these are seriously good amps. I kid you not, if they were in carved-from-solid cases, priced £5K a lump, you really wouldn't query it. Stunning.

Can't wait for the no-holds-barred range at twice the price.

Nice one Glenn.

Hi Dave,

I am currently listening to the prototype "R" versions. And they are a bit special, only slightly more detail than the cheaper amps but in other areas they are vastly different. Imagine your current setup but with a wider, deeper soundstage, more space, separation, better timing. Ultra smooth effortless music that just comes at you without any edginess.

Listen for hours without fatigue. You have a treat coming your way.

I will be updating the website with product pages sometime later today. http://www.croftacoustics.co.uk

Regards, Matt.

[Marco]

Hi Matt,

How's it going? I'll contact you soon to have a listen to the new amps and perhaps once the cricket season is over we can go for a ruby and a few beers with Glenn

Incidentally, Ian and I have been experimenting with stepped attenuators instead of the carbon volume pots that Glenn normally uses (Alps Blue and Black) and, quite frankly, there is a massive difference in performance, with the stepped attenuators completely outperforming even the revered Alps Black.

The Glasshouse Takman metal film unit here has given the best sound:

http://www.hificollective.co.uk/cata...or-p-4926.html

Review by Neville Roberts (makes interesting reading):

http://www.hificollective.co.uk/pdf/...al_stepped.pdf

At the moment I've got the stereo on 24way gold fitted on my Charisma X, but will be trying one of the Seiden units next week. Anyway the upshot of this is that I can say quite categorically that the carbon pots used in Glenn's designs are severely limiting their performance!

I know from speaking to him that he normally doesn't like stepped attenuators, but trust me, there is no downside whatsoever with the Takman - music is simply revealed, unhindered, in all its glory. In comparison, my Alps Black sounded soft and rounded-off, giving bass in particular a 'tubby', 'padded' quality. There is also no forward overly 'bright' signature to the sound or lack of bass (far from it - the lower regsiters are tight and deep like I have never heard before!), which can sometimes be the case with metal film attenuators.

The overall effect is rather like a tap which had previously only been half-open now being opened fully, thus allowing musical information previously 'held in check' to come flooding through; in effect a significant bottleneck is removed. And the Takman is available in mono, too!

Honestly, this is a no-brainer and something Glenn must listen to for himself. I think these pots should be fitted as standard to all of his preamps. I'll publish a separate review later, and discuss stepped attenuators in general in more depth. This for me is another 'amazing new discovery'!

Marco.

[matodono1]

Hi Matt,

How's it going? I'll contact you soon to have a listen to the new amps and perhaps once the cricket season is over we can go for a ruby and a few beers with Glenn

Incidentally, Ian and I have been experimenting with stepped attenuators instead of the carbon volume pots that Glenn normally uses (Alps Blue and Black) and, quite frankly, there is a massive difference in performance, with the stepped attenuators completely outperforming even the revered Alps Black.

The Glasshouse Takman metal film unit here has given the best sound:

http://www.hificollective.co.uk/cata...or-p-4926.html

Review by Neville Roberts (makes interesting reading):

http://www.hificollective.co.uk/pdf/...al_stepped.pdf

At the moment I've got the stereo on 24way gold fitted on my Charisma X, but will be trying one of the Seiden units next week. Anyway the upshot of this is that I can say quite categorically that the carbon pots used in Glenn's designs are severely limiting their performance!

I know from speaking to him that he normally doesn't like stepped attenuators, but trust me, there is no downside whatsoever with the Takman - music is simply revealed, unhindered, in all its glory. In comparison, my Alps Black sounded soft and rounded-off, giving bass in particular a 'tubby', 'padded' quality. There is also no forward overly 'bright' signature to the sound or lack of bass (far from it - the lower regsiters are tight and deep like I have never heard before!), which can sometimes be the case with metal film attenuators.

The overall effect is rather like a tap which had previously only been half-open now being opened fully, thus allowing musical information previously 'held in check' to come flooding through; in effect a significant bottleneck is removed. And the Takman is available in mono, too!

Honestly, this is a no-brainer and something Glenn must listen to for himself. I think these pots should be fitted as standard to all of his preamps. I'll publish a separate review later, and discuss stepped attenuators in general in more depth. This for me is another 'amazing new discovery'!

Marco.

hey Marco,

Glenn usually rips them out when he gets pre-amps in that have been modded with stepped attenuators. I don't know why but he seriously hates em, I will see him over the bank holiday and ask him about them.

I know of one case when an atenuator was causing the pre-amp not to work properly (as well as faults with other mods a tweaker had carried out). Again I don't know the specifics.

It goes back to the basic philosophy of the guy. He doesn't believe in spending any money on hifi. Fortunately he can build his own amps and doesn't have to. He won't buy cables or power leads and in the current Micro and Series 7 range there are no exotic components at all.

In the last days of Eminent Audio Amar was buying in Eichmann accessories and fancy silver foil Jenson caps and whilst Glenn does acknowledge that they do sound better, he can't live with the vast increase in cost of these components over standard ones for only small percentage gains in sound quality. He didn't like using them and certainly didn't approve of the direction it was all going especially as the price tags for the EA stuff equipped and highly tweaked in this manner were approaching the 10K region.

As I say the current "R" versions have no exotica at all and they sound very very good. They are well designed and work well. I know that there are loads of tweaks that could be done to eak out a little more but at what effort and what cost?

The truth is that Glenn has designed the range to be easy to build, a range he is happy to build and probably wants to leave it as it is.

I am sure that the tweaking can be left to you guys who have a penchant for it. I personally don't blame you for experimenting as I do too. In fact I have a set of Eichmann phono plugs that need to be fitted to my CD player at some point over the bank holiday.

Have fun!

Regards, Matt.

[Marco]

Hi Matt,

Hey, no worries. Knowing Glenn's motivation with these things I understand where you're coming from. I just thought that I'd let you know how significant the upgrade is.

When I come down I'll bring my CX with me and you can have a listen perhaps with a view to having a Takman fitted when you have your own preamp upgraded

Marco.

[matodono1]

Hi Matt,

Hey, no worries. Knowing Glenn's motivation with these things I understand where you're coming from. I just thought that I'd let you know how significant the upgrade is.

When I come down I'll bring my CX with me and you can have a listen perhaps with a view to having a Takman fitted when you have your own preamp upgraded

Marco.

Hi Marco,

My Epoch was given the treatment a few months ago, it had a load of internal mods including the chip regulation mod, a black Alps and now sports a 600VA external PSU. I even talked Glenn into fitting one of my home made woven power cables between the two boxes. The difference was stunning and made the standard Epoch sound very crude indeed.

That said I am actually listening to the Micro 25 "R" at the moment in partnership with the Series 7 "R" and the Micro, although not as good as the modded Epoch is so good that I am very satisfied with what I am hearing. It really is a close thing and would also be very close to your modded Charisma.

I am sure you would agree that at £1400 for a the 25 "R" and at that level of performance we are talking serious giant killing. Try and make it down within the next couple of weeks as I will not have them available to me for much longer.

I would definitely be interested in hearing your CX also.

Best, Matt.

[Marco]

That's a date, as they say, Matt

Will 'da man' be finished watching silly men in whites whacking a ball around a field by then and likely be around, too?

Marco.