Croft RIAA RS arrival.

Croft phono preamp arrival & unboxing
Dearest friends, it has been with much excitement, to welcome this Croft Phono RIAA RS model into HiViNyws. And, it is with great pleasure that it will be tasked to provide the platform with which we test out and assess phono cartridges in GroupE and GroupF, together with the Schiit Mani. Heading into the Group E and F carts, I have realized that the Schiit Mani is sooooo NOT a bottleneck in performance assessment of the GroupE and F carts (as the Mani confidently beats the $1100 Lehmann BCSE2 in MM mode). Thus, getting the Croft RIAA RS does not mean that the Mani is out of its depth with more high performance cartridges.
The Croft RIAA RS is to serve as another good servant to help us further our foray into the Group E and F. This, I feel, is a sound and crucial investment in further cartridge assessments and reviews.
Thank you for your friends and buddies for your understanding. And a big thank you to Mr Glenn Croft in England for making this for me. I will cherish it for years to come, Glenn.
Warmest Regards to all fellow vinyl friends and esteemed buddies.
We look forward to catching up!!!!!
~ ian.
****** Background :-)
Dearest Friends and Buddies,
I am Ian and I reside in sunny Singapore. I love our Vinyl Community and Vinyl Music. Vinyl analogue playback is utterly blissful, and I want for fellow friends and buddies to engage in vinyl music for many, many years in their life, each vinyl buddy through their school life, through the hustle and bustle of daily work, accompany them through precious hours at home with their family members or in their hostel with their friends. Vinyl music is blissful, free of time smear, phase shift, pre-ring and post-ring that plagues digital playback. Vinyl buddies and friends can all attest to that. It is not warm in the “bassy warm” sense, it is not soothing in the sense that “everything gets smoothed out”. It is because it is analogue, very detailed, calm, invigorating, enthralling, dynamic, refreshing. In a word, blissful. Utterly :-D
I want for all to get the very equipment that will get us there. These equipment, I firmly believe, are present, and existent, even at affordable price points!..and I started off in Dec 2015 hunting out for them, selling off my own Rega RP6 (which my wife and I loved) to fund the first batch of cartridges for review: the 5 cartridges in Group A ($70-$80), and the 7 cartridges in Group B ($90-$130). Subsequently I told myself to set aside $500-$1000 per month from my monthly salary to buy equipment to review. My own money. Quite a hefty sum monthly, significant to me, as I am a salaried man. I know this is crazy. But I believe in every field, there are people who have to make the sacrifice to pursue their love for the greater good, and to serve, the community of friends. I have also downsized my car in mid-2017 so as to commit these monies to fund these projects. I totally, rigorously, and kindly reject all forms of donations, be they from friends, from retailers, from manufacturers. This is a hobby, and my teachers and advisors in life have advised me that to bring balance to life, and to be wholesome, one will engage in a livelihood (daily job or business) that earns the monies, and one will also simultaneously engage in a hobby/service in life that is non-competitive, non-monetarily-remunerative. My wife totally understands what I want to do for the community and she so kindly supports my decision and efforts. Friends also of course, know that my videos cannot be monetized due to the inclusion of music clips. Vinyl music is a lovely hobby I hold dearly. Friends and buddies are my ultimate responsibility and my love. I want the very best for them, and to provide totally honest reviews. Moles exist in hifi forums, moles also exist from benefactors who donate. I do not want to remotely encounter any moles masquerading as benefactors donating to my cause, only to find out sooner or later that such donations were/are from certain manufacturers or retailers. Everybody will do things differently. I want to maintain my status as a common-folk, aspire always to adopt the Shokunin spirit: of spending the utmost diligent care, through unhurried work, never caring for returns, in perfecting their work for the community. The personal satisfaction of getting to the very best equipment in each price class to help all my lovely buddies and friends is, the only thing, in store for me :-D We toast to the joy and bliss of vinyl analogue music. Vinyl Music deserves our love and attention. Our listening. Our care.
We toast to the lively spirit of :-D !!:
“Everybody will be dancing and doing it right - by Daft Punk”
Let's go, buddies and friends!!!
Warmest Regards,
~ ian :-D