Yippee - Croft Micro II

[Dowser]

Me happy, I realised a long held ambition when a Croft Micro II was delivered to me today

The pron;

I bought it off a kind gentleman in the UK, and got into a discussion with Glenn on best modifications to it. Glenn was so helpful, and his prices so reasonable, that I ended up shipping it directly to him for new HT regulation plus an update to his latest output stage, rather than bodging it myself.

He got it Thursday morning, and contacted me Thursday evening confirming the work was done and asking whether I wanted him to replace the noisy phono stage tubes - Glenn uses JJs, which is my preference for new tubes too, and his prices were cheaper than I could get them for as singles; so a no brainer really.

Can't wait to listen to it tonight - I've been happily using a Chinese Marantz 7 line only valve pre clone for the last couple of years, then recently swapped to a Yaqin with inbuilt MM tube phono stage too. While I loved the valve MM stage (compared to the Naim cards I was using before), line level was not as good as the Marantz 7 clone. I am assuming Glenn's design will improve on both

A big thanks to Glenn - his customer service is second to none!

Richard

 

[hifi_dave]

Glenn is the best. You are going to enjoy that pre.

 

[Dowser]

After some listening, and some concerns fixed by cleaning my DL-110 stylus and leaving the Micro (with 2 new JJ 83s doing phono stage duties) on for 24 hours, I am a very happy chappy. I now have a very fugly pre that makes the best music I have heard through my system, and do not imagine I will be replacing it.

Anyone want to buy a stock Yaqin MS-12B, or a heavily modded Marantz 7 valve pre clone?

Richard

 

[donmusic]

You got state of the art stuff, im considering to get an upgrade to my Promitheus TVC with a Quad 909, and this is the perfect candidate for my needs.

 

[Zombie]

The input impedance of the Quad 909 is very low, check what the Croft output can handle...

 

[Dowser]

I left it on another 24 hours and am now simply stunned - I cannot get the smile off my face!

Richard

 

[Dowser]

So, I finally replaced the smoothing caps this weekend - ended up using what was available, which meant much larger values than we in there originally;

200uF/385v replaced with 470uF
50uF/385v replaced with 220uF
3700/25v replaced with 10000uF
One I could match, there was also a 220uF/385v that I had the right part for...

Initially it sound very flabby in the bass with limited high frequency extension and I thought the cap values had screwed things up, but 2-3 hours later it all snapped into focus and sounds much better than before.

So, should I get the right values for thos I replaced with higher capacitance values, or also swap the 220uF with a spare 470uF I have?

Think I will cross post this Q into DIY - me no understand significance of capacitance values in smoothing caps. My logic suggests more is better, but there must be some limitations to this.

Richard

 

[Dowser]

As usual, I learned loads from asking the question in DIY (http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=83949) and think I will leave it as is for now - it sounds absolutely fantastic after a bit more burn in time.

Richard