Croft Super Micro IV advice

vendredi 25 mars 2016

About 3 or so years ago I was experimenting with different valve pre amps and amongst others bought a Super Micro IV. It sounded great for a little while but started making some noise on the phono input after about 2 months, then another fully working Super Micro IV turned up cheap on ebay so I bought it and mothballed the noisy one. Shortly after that I bought a different pre altogether (an Ear 864 from memory) and the second Croft was also relegated to a box under my bed, where both have sat until today. I have a small plan in the longer term to use one of the Croft pres with a pair of Quad 50E monos that I purchased recently, and so I need to think about getting the Crofts serviced as they have been sitting idle for so long.

I am thinking of getting one of them serviced so it is fully working, and the other to get serviced and maybe upgraded depending upon what is available from Croft re. upgrades. What I need to know now is which to keep and which to let go, so I have added some pictures below in case anyone can advise on the subtle differences between the two pres.

A picture of the two together first:

Then a larger one of the top one in the picture, valve compliment is 2 x ECC82, 2 x ECC83, 1 x ECL85 and 1 x 85A2 (hidden below the ECL85):

And finally a larger one of the bottom one in the picture, valve compliment is 2 x BH7A, 2 x ECC83, 1 x ECL85 (I think, text is not clear) and 1 x CV4048 (again hidden below the ECL85):

All other things being equal, can anyone advise which looks the better candidate for servicing and improving (to keep and use), and which looks better for just servicing and selling? It will be used mainly for a turntable based system, running a moving magnet cartridge into the phono input of the pre, so is there anything to think about re. any phono mods which could be carried out to best suit an Ortofon 2M Black on the pre I keep?

Many thanks for any advice (other than to dust them).

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Croft Super Micro IV advice

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