Anyone hear a Croft Integrated Amp?

A note on @smrex13 comment. I agree but must add that you can alter the sound of the amp by changing the tubes. The stock are warm and a little rolled off. Swap in cheap Electro Harmonix will add detail if not a tiny bit brash. Gold Lions will remove that harshness. Telefunkens will bring the amp to a new level. Also look at 5157 tubes. Consider Croft separates too as an upgrade route.

I use the Croft 7R power amp and it sounds great. Better than my Audio Research VS60. But not nearly as great as my 300b SET monoblocks built to a WE91 schematic. 

@nordicnorm I bought a pair of the LS Shuguangs from Grant and love them in my 25R. Thanks for the head's-up.

I have listened to the phono integrated, a really nice sounding little integrated. The stock JJ tubes Glenn sends with the amp are very good, but as others say, one can tube roll and get different sonic characteristics. But mainly, you just have a very good, musical amp in the Croft.

I own the Micro 25 preamp and Series 7 amps, just love them. Simple, very spartan looks, and wonderful sonics. That the phono stages sound so good too in the Crofts can just be an added bonus, even if it is only MM. 

I think some may dismiss the Crofts on looks alone, or maybe even due to the Stereophool review damning the measurements, but who cares, they sound great. Give them a listen, well worth the time! 

Tim

I bought a Croft Phono Integrated last year and have been generally happy with it - mostly playing Vinyl. It's loud enough and has a nice broad tone - neither too bassey nor too trebley - a bit like baby bear's porridge!

Croft's mimimilism really is at play with this amp as the first thing I noticed was I couldn't connect a line-out from it whilst using the phono-amp ... because the phono amp doesn't have a voltage follower (buffer). The result was the line-out sucked the voltage out of the signal and everything went quiet in the speakers.

I had a voltage-follower (valve) stage fitted by a very capable man here in the UK and that solved that problem. However there are one or two other things to bear in mind about this amp.

Firstly, Glenn Croft has stripped this amp back to the bare essentials, so it has just 4 amplification stages; phono, pre-amp, pre-amp follower (single mosfet in class A) and power stage (mosfet pair in class AB).

A typical integrated amp contains 7 to 9 stages. Having recently started building my own integrated amp incorporating valves and mosfets, I can see and hear the significance of the decisions Glenn has made to simplify the Phono Integrated. Most of these were reflected in Sterophile's review in 2013: https://www.stereophile.com/content/croft-acoustics-phono-integrated-integrated-amplifier

- Total harmonic distortion is a little high - though this isn't always a bad thing, but it is a reflection of a very simple pre-amp that doesn't incorporate any negative feedback. The preamp goes straight into the AB mosfet stage i.e. there is no separate gain-driver after the pre-amp.

- The RIAA curve on the phono-amp has notable treble roll-off. Again, not a bad thing, but the Croft phono-stage doesn't sound as detailed as the DIY amp I have built which has a more 'conventional' RIAA profile.

I'm not saying the RIAA curve is related to the differences in detail; I'm not an expert in these matters. However I have found the experience of building something myself enormously insightful and I would recommend it - as I would the Croft Phono Integrated.