Well, I found something that I can work on to hopefully end up enhancing my present system.
I mentioned elsewhere that I had problems with a decided lack of bass and had several possibilities as to what this could be due to.
Having checked my speakers against a s.s. amplifier, I decided the phono stage & pre-amp were the likely culprits, so had been seriously considering replacing them.
A Croft was my preferred choice but searching wherever I could only revealed lots of decent units that had recently sold and very little currently on offer.
By chance I happened upon a wooden fronted Croft Vitale and the kind Parcelforce man brought it to me this afternoon.
I have several reasons for holding off plugging it in and trying to get it working and believe me I am itching to do just that. But, I have asked Mr Croft for some advice/recommendations and until I am certain as to the next course of action I will resist the obvious course of action.
It isn't the best cosmetically, but only requires a few bits & pieces to sort it's appearance out. It is missing a mains lead, which I'm sure can be easily sorted and that only leaves me with the internals to consider.
Hopefully Mr C will make some suggestions that I'll find hard to resist.
It isn't the model I wanted, but as the Stones said - you get what you need, not what you want (or something like that).
If anyone is interested, I'll post updates as the saga continues.