Cary SLP-98 -- Do Oil Caps make a Difference?

They absolutely improve your preamp. I heard them both and the one with oil caps was more musical, transparent and has more details also.

I had SLP98 which I tried cary stock kimbers, jensens, hovlands and TFT teflons. Prior to that in other pieces I experimented with RTX, Wima and many others. You will not like the oil caps in that preamp although you may like them in an amplifier. They are ok there. I found them detailed, a little overblown bass (but not too much, sort of liked that for awhile). By all means, spend the bucks and go with the teflons. There is no comparison to any of those. I put them in my SLM-200 monoblocks and spent $$$ putting them into my stock Aesthetix IO (heck of a job, there were 20 in there. I had to put up my house as collateral on the cap purchase :)))))) They are awesom caps. Never heard the Vcaps so I cant comment on those. But for the SLP98, dont waste your money on anything else. This is my opinion, no flames please. Good luck. There are other posts on this, you may want to check those.

Ok, Linnlp doesn't like the oil caps. Nickt likes them. I did a search of the archives and didn't find much. One guy tried lots of caps and settled on the TNT Teflons as the best by a long shot.

Since Cary likes to tweak their stuff, I don't know why they offer such few options.

Here is my take after experiment them in my gears:
If you like extreme detailed sound then go with exotic teflons. If you like musical and smooth transition sound then go with oil caps. The teflonss will be more crisp if that's what you're looking for. I use the vintage sprague oil caps because they're cheaper. Supposely the more expensive teflons can provide both but I won't spend a fortune to replace more than 2 dozen of them in my preamp. You're talking about $60 vs over $800.

I recommend the SoniCap Platinum, a teflon-alloy tin-foil-and-film cap. It's very detailed, clean, smooth, and tonally neutral, perhaps as good as money can buy, and they're less expensive than the V-Cap TFTFs. Another cap VERY close to the SCP is the Cardas Golden Ratio. Same characteristics, just 98% of the SCPs, and for 30 - 50% of the price.

Speaking of 2-dozen caps, my ASL Hurricanes each use a pair in the 1st postion and 8 in the 2nd position. I replaced them with SCPs and CGRs, respectively. I'm more a tin-eared audiofool than a GEA, but it sure sounds better to me.

If any of you paper-in-oil fans would like the 20 0.22/600 PIOs I removed from my 'Canes, for the price of shipping, e-mail me at jeffreybehr(at)cox(dot)net.
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