Cary Audio SLP-05 First Impression

. . . I just looked at a note I made re my own, and I am usually reading 230 to 240 VDC and 55 to 60 Ma.

I am also curious: in the email exchange, what was the troubleshooting advice that Cary Audio gave you?

Wow, Xcool, as a relatively new SLP05 owner, that was a bummer to read.

My experience in the past with Cary Audio (SLA70, SLP90, power bank, V12) has been extremely positive. That stuff I listed was/is extremely reliable & when I did have questions, their telephone tech service was great. Their customer service, back then, was a big part of what kept me a customer.

About a year or so ago, my 20 year old V12 finally had a signal cap shoot craps and I wasn’t super thrilled with the tech support. I sent an email that wasn’t responded to, so I sent a couple of more, and what I got back was an email telling me to send them the unit & what their shop rates were. On a different audio forum than this one, an extremely kind and helpful & patient member exchanged about one thousand emails with me & I troubleshot & changed all 4 caps myself.

After that I had decided to swear Cary Audio Design off, but I heard so much good about the SLP05 with Ultimate Upgrade, that when a preowned one came up on their site I pulled the trigger &, like you, ordered the upgrade.

I understand your dilemma. I think if it was me, and MD was willing to refund me the price of the pre AND the upgrade, I’d reluctantly go that route.

I’ll be watching to see how this works out for you.

@avanti1960 that is a good dealer!

@xcool I am going to go out on a limb & say that I don't think being overheated is the cause of your problems; older model SLP05s (such as the one I bought) were actually designed by Cary with indentations in the top pf the power supply for the preamp section to sit on.  That typed, I have mine on a separate shelf, but still, that is the way Cary originally built them.

Something else that interests me are the meter readings:

going from memory I think that you said that "plate voltage" (VDC) was pegged out, and that "plate current" was down to 30 Ma. I really have only a less than rudimentary understanding of this subject, but I am thinking that even though preamp tubes have different functions than amp tubes, they still need to have some sort of bias control (meaning the current flow through them, which would be the desired Ma reading) like amp tubes do, and if I am correct, on the preamp it would be an auto-bias function.

But I could very well be wrong about all of that; hopefully someone will clear up my cloudy understanding of those two readings.

The fact that the current was at 30 mA, and not the normal 60+ mA seems to suggest to me that the tubes are not drawing enough current, and are possibly malfunctioned.  Then again, what do I know.

or, I was thinking, something wrong and not providing the current.  But, sadly, this is above my pay-grade.

I enjoyed your write up.

I picked up a "preowned" SLP 05 from Cary 7 or 8 months ago.

It was an upgrade from my ancient SLP 90.

I am finally getting around to shopping for different tubes.

Oh, and color me ignorant, or out of touch, but what is the jc2/jc5 thing all about?

"The SLP-05 has been out for quite some time. I wonder if Cary is going to come out with a new preamp anytime soon.  I’ll be really angry if they do that in the next few months. 😀"

I am usually wrong when I make predictions on this kind of thing, but I think that this may become the Cary 805 equivalent except it's a  pre-amp.

@decooney  if that is the same thread I remember reading, that certainly was not a ringing endorsement for Cary Audio.  As a relatively new SLP05 owner, that made me shudder and also made me think, "Gee, I hope I never have to send mine back."

@decooney  don't get me wrong--I think my SLP05 is a great sounding unit and it certainly is a sexy unit.

The thread that I was thinking about involved an issue with a Cary product (and I don't remember which one for certain) that went back & forth to & from Cary, as apparently, for that service order, Cary's right hand wasn't talking to the left hand  (one tech thought that a previous tech had replaced a cap and etc). . . .

I guess my experiences with Cary Audio in the '90s made me somewhat spoiled.  All the Cary products I bought back in that era were solidly reliable and the tech support was via telephone ad personal.  However I do realize that nothing stays the same forever. 

A V12R?  I have one of the earlier V12s and I love it.  It's been a great amp.  What all did they do to the 'R' model?

and no way should the consumer bear additional costs to rectify a manufacture defect.

@testpilot  I totally agree with that.

That must have been a typo on their part.  I am pretty sure that they meant "an arc in the circuit."

And I believe that they would be possibly meaning that something (damage) had occurred that created a gap somewhere (where there was once continuity) in the circuit, and the arc that they are referring to would be the current jumping that gap.

Yes, the tubes fit tightly in those sockets. Personally, I would prefer to grip the tube by the base when I inserted it or removed it, but that was one of the first things I noted about this pre that I thought was flawed about the design--the fact that the tube sockets are recessed about 2" below the top of the pre, & unless you have tubes with higher than usual bases, you can’t do that. I was a bit worried about breaking something on the board by pushing to hard, myself.

As far as the plate voltage & plate current, I am definitely not an electrician or electronically minded, but I was thinking that those were indications of what was going through the tubes (ie "plate"), but  Cary didn’t suggest anything about the tubes.  (I thought it was indicating the bias of the preamp tubes.)

I have to find my computer headphones in order to hear anything that I am watching on my computer, so I will give that a go later on. With everything that is going on, I am kind of thinking that I would be inclined to take the refund from MD, but, will you have to eat the cost of the upgrade?

@xcool I respect you for not wanting to screw over either MD or Cary Audio, but returning a product that you paid a lot of $ for, and one that is not operating at all or operating as advertised, is not what I would define as screwing someone.

As far as the tubes not being completely pushed into their respective sockets . . . I can see how that might degrade the signal path, but I am not getting how it would cause damage that would cause the unit to completely cease to function . . . but as I typed earlier, I am not an electrician. (Maybe that caused some fluctuations in the current between the socket & the pins of the tubes that caused a cap or a resistor or a diode to fail?)  Good luck with this whatever you decide to do. The SLP05 certainly is a good looking unit, and so far, I am finding mine a unit that sounds delicious.

. . . so pressing on with my musings on this, I believe that it is the rectifier’s function to convert the AC out of the wall into the DC current that goes through the preamp tubes. So I would think that there must be an issue in that function of your pre, as you were saying that plate voltage in VDC was pegged out.  But again, there is probably way more to it than this, and I am probably way over simplifying it, if not completely misstating it. 

BTW.  is there anyway I can visually check if a tube is bad or not?  Just curious.

Upon occasion I've had tubes that took on a strange glow or put on  lightening show when powered up; however, in your case, I think that the visual you would get is no glow at all. But other than that, not really, and the no-glow isn't even definitive, as it may well be something else in the circuit before the tubes.

I then turned the source dial towards Aux2.   It skipped over XLR2 and Aux1.  When the dial landed on Aux2, all the LED lights went off, as if I have powered off the unit, but the power unit remained on

I was actually thinking that if something happened to both tubes in sockets 3 & 6, that would end the signal path right then & there & if that was the case, there would be no output when using the balanced inputs.  However, that quote above is pretty weird, and that makes me think that this is a failure of some electrical component (resistor, cap, diode, etc) on the circuit board prior to the tubes.  I will continue to reiterate, however, how electronically challenged I am, so you can probably take my thoughts on this matter with a grain of salt. 

Looking at the bright side:  this is under warranty, and as disappointed as I know that you are (believe me, I can relate) with being unable to play with your new toy, from reading prior posts, at least you have vinyl and an operational phono-stage.

But I will be interested to know what they tell you is wrong with it.

That was a well written update.

so I tried some JJ's I had and the whole unit changed!  And I HATE the JJ 6SN7 tubes usually!

@blkwrxwgn  , I recently had a bad experience (a way too early failure) with 4 RCA Glass VT231s that I paid way too much for in the phase gain buffer sockets (in my SLP 05), therefore I am back to the EHs in those four positions.  I intend to give Mr. Jessee a call one of these days, but for now, I kind of blew my tube allowance.  As I remember, JJs are quite affordable, so can you elaborate on the sonic changes they made in your SLP-05?

Good to know about your experience with NOS Mullard rectifier. Can you tell me exactly the model/year if you remember? I did change my rectifier tube to the Gold Lion Genelax as recommended by some member here, but did not hear much difference

@xcool  , a while ago I had some questions related to the rectifier tube for the SLP-05; I don't know if you caught any of it when it was running, but if not, you may find some of the replies helpful.  Or you may not--but either way, here is the thread: