RIP Glenn Croft

Certainly is a shame, and he will be missed. I enjoy a Micro 25 preamplifier and Series 7 amps. Have had them for a number of years. Simple, spartan little amps that sound very good. 

Like lfd, his products were always wonderfully made and completely underrated. He managed to capture that British sound perfectly. And yes, that's hard to describe, but it makes sense once you listen to his stuff.

RIP

"RIP Glenn Croft

The man I have looked-up to the most in my life has suddenly died.

He had many rare qualities and what he stood for spoke volumes to me.

In some ways he combined those rare British strengths of being inventive, stoical, loyal, honest, shy, an animal lover, kind by nature, a man of his word.

But also strong, sensitive and quiet with a sharp wit that came out of the blue.

I stocked only the Croft brand of amplifiers he built by hand because they ‘spoke’ to me and to thousands of others.
Voices were real, the soundstage was 3 dimensional, timing spot on.

His genius lay in the intuitive minimalism of his designs. Sometimes, other designers would look at his beautiful hand-wired work and scratch their heads in disbelief at the apparent simplicity.

I have been thinking lately about how to view death; the cocktail of being unwell mixed with the illness of these times is heavy.
He became angry with the unbelievable, self-serving egotism of the Conservative party, the absurd bureaucracy around Brexit, Covid, Putin’s war. Most sensitive and observant people feel this burden.

I will never forget you Glenn. You understood the duality between objective and subjective better than any person I know. I just can’t believe you have left us!"

I had the Croft Super Micro preamp with wonderful phonostage. Very simple and affordable preamp that sounded wonderful with my McIntosh MC30 and Marantz 8b amplifiers and Spendor 2/3 and then Altec 604E speakers. Tried different affordable preamplifiers and phonostages, but Croft Super Micro was the best match to my system that time. I really enjoyed this sound for 5 years.

Thank you Glenn Croft! R.I.P.

@alexberger I've admired your system and DIY phonostages. I should have known you'd be a Croft man!

R.I.P. Glenn

Very sad to hear. I sold his amplifiers back in the 1980's. His 6550 based Series 4 power amp was really outstanding. For some reason he discontinued it in favour of lower powered EL84 based designs - possibly because it was too expensive to make. However, his later designs continued to be outstanding in terms of their combination of affordability and sound quality. RIP Glenn Croft.

Hi @noromance ,

Thank you for the good words.

I had a number of components that left good memories and even nostalgia: Croft preamp, McIntosh MC30 power amplifier, Spendor 2/3 speakers, Lenco 78 turntable.

There were other components that I was glad to get rid of like - Plinius 8200 amp or Dynaudio Audience 60 speakers, Nottingham Spacedeck turntable.

@yoyoyaya I had the Series IV for a few years. I ran GEC KT88s and GE 6550 in it. Glenn was a fan of the Leak Stereo 20 and its EL84s. 

@ noromance, i've never been a particular fan of 84s myself. I love them in a Vox AC 30. But for the same reason, I'm less fond of them in hi fi amplifiers!

@patrickdowns For some reason, I revisited this thread and just read your post. What a lovely obituary.