Cary SLI-80HS modifications

@txp1 "hexfeds, better caps, silver wiring, Greyhill volume control, improved binding posts. I’m leaning toward getting all of them. Opinions? "

Sure @pehare I’ll chime in, fwiw. imo, I’d also suggest to opt sending your existing SLI-80 to a great local tech for a look-see and targeted upgrades. Sometimes I miss my former SLI-80 Signature, it had really nice upgrades done locally. Sounded amazing after similar upgrades. I was experimenting with Cary SLP-98 preamp at the time, and Cary Audio actually bought back my SLI-80 from me and gave me full price for it with upgrade costs (no joke). They wanted to study the upgrades my local friend and tech did for me before he retired. They had it in the showroom there at Cary listening to it, and were very complimentary. They had few customers queued up who dropped by to hear it. They resold it the week it arrived and the new owner was absolutely thrilled with it. It was the local tech upgrades that brought that amp to another new level. And, maybe I’m a diehard for the older Cary stuff sometimes too. You can also check out what you have now for an uplift.

Or, nothing wrong with buying the new SLI-80HS, with all upgrades, yet you’ll be paying for stock tubes you might put back in the box and replace those anyhow. The older Upscale inspired F1 version can be improved upon by a great tech, maybe someone here will chime in who’s taken an older SLI-80 to the next level like I had prior.

Personally I dont know if I’d do the SS rectifiers today if I picked up another SLI-80. I knew the former designer there who’s long gone, and we talked about this some, and your note about this is correct. My existing tube mono block amps have SS rectification, its nice too. However sometimes I miss a bit of the tube bloom there too. Fast vs. slow, ... Grass is greener some times. Something about older designs that can work too given a makeover. 

Best of Luck on the decsions.

@txp1 I really like the Gold Lion KT88 in my SLI-80.

Tip: Trust your ears and what you like. A former contact and colleague designed the SLI-100 for Cary. He departed shortly after it was ready to go into production. While the circuit determines the sound with any tube, the KT88s sound very nice in the Cary amps. Sometimes, in some cases, newer is "not always better", fwiw.

This note is coming to you from someone who owns monbock amps that run KT150s or KT120s today. I spent way too much time on my current amps, input tubes, and caps along with different sources trying to get them to provide a sound, tone, texture, and result that sounded closer to my former Cary amps with KT88s, fwiw. While I’ve not heard heard the new SLI-100 in my system and setup, imo, if you love your KT88s now, my bet is the newer unit will sound different, a more modern and more linear sound. KT88s can sound really nice. The old days we use to bring the amps home and try them, not so easy any more with fewer dealers due to manufacturers now offering buy-direct. 

@pehare "kitchen sink upgrades from Cary ..."

Do you happen to know which capacitors were listed as upgrades on your invoice/receipt ?

@doyle3433 It sounds more focused and tighter, no loss on the sweetness of tube highs and mids. SS rectifier to thank for this?

Different new production stock tubes, yes ss vs. tube rectification, different coupling caps, hexfred upgrade, all contributes to a less "tubey" and faster and more modern sound.

Fortunately the Triode/UL switch is still there from the old design to enjoy that too, provided you have the right efficiency speaker with the lower wattage in triode mode. Some of us put the stock EH tubes in their boxes, replace from there. 

@doyle3433 Any advice on what you’ve found to be nice pairings? Everyone else feel free to suggest as well.

While I stupidly parted with my own Cary SLI-80 a few years ago, I’ve followed along with others since. Cary bought it back from me, paid FULL price for it wanting to see/hear the mods I/we did with a local industry tech friend who’s now retired. The customer who bought it from Cary called me and really likes it a lot. He wanted to buy all the GL tubes and all of the vintage tubes I still had for it too. Good fun.

Following some of my history, a buddy [tube nut] received his new SLI-80 two weeks ago and while he swapped out the large stock KT88 output tubes for PSVANE EL34s (his preference), he’s been reminding me how swapping out the front two small 6922s makes the most difference. Its crazy, he’s already trying 5 different 6922 pairs he had on order, some new, some NOS vintage. This tube change kind of depends on what you are looking for in terms of more/less detail, or midrange, and such. He runs horn speakers too and hears every 6922 tube change.

imo, yours is a bit more of a special case with those Volte horns you have. Change matters, and select tubes well. As you let it break in, feel free to send me a PM/DM and I can share his my/notes with you. He did not like the stock EH at all though, and same experience I had. Depends on what you hear from your Volte’s.

His last two sets of 6922 this week [new production] were JJ gold pins, and vintage he’s really liking the [vintage production] Amperex 6922s. He’s got more burn-in required on his SLI-80 though. He rolls more tubes than anyone I know, to an obsessive degree. Problem is those old Amperex [matched pairs] are getting to be ridiculously expensive. I would only recommend getting those from a very reputable tube seller with a guarantee/return policy if you go down the vintage rabbit hole. I had Gold Lyon KT88s/6922s in my SLI-80 and they worked better than some vintage tubes i tried. Your situation could be different and call for different tubes - again, depending on what you are looking for from the sound.

I see you have the Cutest dac paired with GR cables. I’ve never tried that dac, but I did recently pick up the Border Patrol SE-I DAC, same dac that BorderPatrol / Volte / TriodeWireLabs uses a the shows. This BP SE-I dac is soft and gentle, i.e so picking a soft 6922 with this BP dac NOT be a good idea, as an example. Whereas I understand your Chord Cutest is a bit more detailed, so balancing things out matters and you may decide to lean one direction or the other with 6922s.

@doyle3433 can you look at your order build sheet to confirm which coupling caps they installed in your HS model?  Also, I'm not familiar with what stock tubes they come with now days, is it still Electro Harmonix or something else now?

I'm helping or tracking along with a friend with his SLI 80, and he's rolled several output tubes and at least 4 different input tubes on his own, and seemingly not "there" yet. Now he's replaced all the KT88s, trying different EL34s, wanting that type of midrange sound for his 3-way Klipsch Hersey IVs, which are NOT like his former Hersey IIIs. He's acting super itchy now wanting to swap out the stock (lower version) Mundorf caps his came with. I'm talking about someone who swaps coupling caps more frequently than most people change tubes - that kind of over obsession. We'll see.  We talked and thought it was best to let the amp truly burn in another 30 days before jumping to conclusions, screwing with the caps yet, its too early imo. For now, maybe its worth doing some research to determine what other type amp/tubes work well with you Volti Razz (other than Gary Dews 300B amp). Its helpful to decide if you want to keep KT88s or attempt EL34 instead, and only you can answer what's missing from the sound after its burned in at least 30-45 days, would be my suggestion. You might like it stock after its all settled in, yet I don't recall how much time you have on this amp/tubes/caps overall. .