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Integrated valve amp circa £2.5k?

Elephantears said:
There's no way a Croft pre will drive a power amp with 10KOhm input impedance properly - it will sound anaemic. As a point of comparison, Croft power amps are 470KOhm.
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I thought the cathode follower modification will change output impedance to 500 ohms, would that not work?
 
The Sara is a lovely speaker but really needs raw power to sing, and they can sing.
A Naim NAP 160 does a great job, a 250 probably better and a pair of 135 is a highway to hi-fi Nirvana !
I would borrow one of these before making any move as may realize you have one of the best speakers ever and you didn’t know about it yet !
All of the owners of Sara I know regretted selling them on the long term, don’t become one of them !
 
Elephantears said:
There's no way a Croft pre will drive a power amp with 10KOhm input impedance properly - it will sound anaemic.
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Somewhat misleading, I strongly suspect, given what power amps people are blissfully happy with using a Croft pre'.

As for quoting input and out impedences of any Croft amplifier at all, that come from the webite - considerable doubt has been cast on the accuracy of the figures innumerble times.
 
Hi,
I don't want to offend anybody but I can't recommend the Unison Triode 25, this was one of the worst sounding valve amplifiers I have listend to. I prefer the Unison S6 and the Simply Italy by far, but wouldn't recommend them with your speakers.

I also would never go for anything from brands like Yaqin or any cheap Chinese stuff. Good valve amplifiers are expansive and that has a reason because good quality components are expansive.

Also Ayon is a brand I wouldn't buy because dealers told me about the quality issues.

If I would be on a budget I would look for a second hand Audiomat amp from the lower range or a second hand Acoustic Masterpiece AM201 (H).

If someone wants to stick to cheaper brands I would have a look at Line Magnetic and Tsakiridis.

I also can recommend Croft because to me the sound isn't that far away from a good valve amplifier but you don't have the fuss with worn out power valves also the bass is tighter and the whole sound more dynamic.
 
Vinny said:
given what power amps people are blissfully happy with using a Croft pre'.

As for quoting input and out impedences of any Croft amplifier at all, that come from the webite - considerable doubt has been cast on the accuracy of the figures innumerble times.
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Can you find someone using a power amp with that low impedance with a Croft Pre? Do you have better figures than the website?
 
Elephantears said:
Can you find someone using a power amp with that low impedance with a Croft Pre? Do you have better figures than the website?
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Just read my post again. I very specifically used the word "suspect".

I also suspect that 99% of people, even here on PFM, have not the very first clue what the input impedence is for any amplifier, me included, not least because mine is an amp' that no figures have appeared for, so far as I am aware.
 
Vinny said:
I also suspect that 99% of people, even here on PFM, have not the very first clue what the input impedence is for any amplifier, me included, not least because mine is an amp' that no figures have appeared for, so far as I am aware.
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There lies the problem! And a good reasons for sticking with the same manufacturer when pre and power amp matching. It's generally not a problem when matching valve preamps and power amps, because the power amps will have high input impedances. Matching a valve pre with a solid state power amp is much more of a lottery though. I'm sure when it works well it can give desirable yin/yang sonic benefits, but it's easy to get a mismatch.
 
Elephantears said:
It's a great amp - with the right speakers, of course. Superb with Tannoys. What did you try using it with?
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To me not and 4 other persons with different systems and also more than one pair of speakers had the same impression as me about the amp.
I don't know which speaker I have owned at that time.

The output impedance of the Croft Micro 25 R is: 2.920Ω (measured by the German hifi-magazine AUDIO).
 
John at MidlandAudioXchange has an ex demo Leben 300f for just under your target price.

Used & Ex-demonstration HiFi Equipment | Offers | Midland Audio xChange (midlandaudiox-change.co.uk)

I had one until recently and loved it but "sidegraded" to a 300XS so I could tube roll.

They have a lovely open sound and , IMO, a magical soundstage and drive a range of speakers - quite a few reviewers like Jeff Day use them with the relatively inefficient Harbeths. And they look rather lovely in an old fashioned sort of way.

I'm not sure how it would compare to the Linn system but I changed from a NAim 200/202 and found an improvement in what I enjoy - timbre, soundstage, voices.
 
kjb said:
They have a lovely open sound and , IMO, a magical soundstage and drive a range of speakers - quite a few reviewers like Jeff Day use them with the relatively inefficient Harbeths. And they look rather lovely in an old fashioned sort of way.
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Didn't he use the CS 600 ?
 
Elephantears said:
There lies the problem! .................
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I strongly SUSPECT that the problem lies with the claimed output impedence of Croft pre's being WAY too high.
Most, by no means all, Crost pre's use a cathode follower output and a typical output impedence of such is WAY lower than claimed on Croft spec's. In which case, you would expect them to drive most power amp's with ease.

All supposition and conjecture of course. Someone would need to measure the real output impedence across a few Croft variants to be sure.
 
Old Shatterhand said:
I don't know which speaker I have owned at that time.
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Then I'd suggest it's unhelpful to post impressions. I've tried the amp with Tannoy Eatons, with which it sounds superb, and Harbeth C7-ES3, with which it was not really a success. I was disappointed that the latter wasn't a better synergy, but I wouldn't have judged the amp on that basis.
 
I don’t understand why anyone would suggest changing the preamp. The power amp is under powered for the speakers and the turntable is so far off the pace it’s ludicrous.

The system is mis balanced and needs work but if there’s one part of the system that’s ok it’s the pre.
 
Elephantears said:
Then I'd suggest it's unhelpful to post impressions. I've tried the amp with Tannoy Eatons, with which it sounds superb, and Harbeth C7-ES3, with which it was not really a success. I was disappointed that the latter wasn't a better synergy, but I wouldn't have judged the amp on that basis.
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Why is it unhelpful? I found the amplifier bad, why shouldn't I write this? :confused:
You also don't have the speakers @Greyandy has. So you don't know if the amp will fit too. The other people have used speakers from Klipsch, Unison Max 2 (Prototype) and Odeon IIRC and again, none of them liked the amplifier and moaned about the same things as I do. The amp IMO doesn't have the tonal quality that and natural sounding like a good valve amplifier has, it sounds like a solid state but hasn't got the control of a good solid state so only the negative sides of both. We 4 also had transformer humming issues. I prefer the older Unison Triode 20 wich sounds much nicer to my ears. :)

BTW: Even a German Hifi-magazine preferred the Simply Italy and the S6MKII over the Triode 25.

https://www.lowbeats.de/unison-research-familientest-die-kleinen-roehren-amps/
 
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