Cary SLP 98 users, past and present, are there any left?
Recently purchased the above mentioned preamp in Jaguar red, has phono section and Lundahl MC upgrade, also Hexfred rectifiers and is direct-coupled. Most of that means little to me but I know the upgrades matter. I am very pleased to far with what I hear and I am listening to nearly new cheap tubes. I'm going to burn them in awhile before deciding what to look for in tube rolling. I have yet to try the phono section as I use my Cary PH301 phono pre and SAEC SUT. Listening to LP12 with Linn Karma LOMC. It all sounds very damn good to me. CD's are easier on the ears than they used to be. I think the tubes tame them down a tad. Currently listening to them on a very old Pioneer DVD player V7400. I think it may sound better than my 20 bit Denon which is up for repairs.
Cut to the chase, just wanted you guys to know the electronics, front end anyway. The first time I tried the new Cary, I had the umbilical crossed up and only the phono stage seemed to engage. The PS got quite warm. It still runs warm and that is the question. How warm should it run? It's certainly not too hot to touch but it is warm, I'd say twice as warm as my PH301 PS, which is about the same case. It does sound very good. I'm just hoping that I didn't cause harm in my first session. Was only a few minutes but knew something was wrong and found that the umbilical was the problem. I was shocked that it was possible to put it together incorrectly. Never had that trouble on the PH301.
Anyway, overall, I am very pleased and know that I will likely be looking at different tubes down the road. Only complaint is the remote. 5k preamp and 50 cent remote. Kind of cheesy. Not enough to be displeased with anything, just an observation.
The first time I tried the new Cary, I had the umbilical crossed up and only the phono stage seemed to engage. The PS got quite warm. It still runs warm and that is the question. How warm should it run? It's certainly not too hot to touch
Sorry, @billpete, I have no experience with the SLP-98 to relate to you; however, with my SLP-05, the power supply gets VERY warm after a couple hours of playing. Not hot enough to burn the palm of my hand, but still, quite warm. I got the impression from other previous '05 threads that other owner/operators experienced the same thing. (With that typed, I realize that the '05 utilizes a 5AR4 rectifier tube withing the power supply that the '98 does not, but I am still thinking that all of that warmth is not coming from that tube.) And I am afraid that when I was running my SP-90 I never did check the power supply to check how warm it was (because I had the power supply on that set up located out of sight/out of mind).
I am not overly crazy about what Cary Audio customer service has devolved to (although it may just be industry standard, and in the old days Cary had me spoiled) but you might try giving them (Cary) a call and asking about that issue. I'd bet that they will probably tell you to send an email with your question, and (in my experience) it may take a couple of emails before they answer, but that would probably be the route to go.
@billpetedo you recall how the power supply looked when unpacking it, and was the umbilical cord pinched or jammed inside the cardboard box or anything like that? Was the shipping box in good condition when you received it?
Checking my own, yes the power supply gets warm. However, it does not get to be excessively hot. Next time I have mine powered on for a day, I may have to use a meter and measure how warm it gets and others could do the same.
I have to say that everything was very well packed and I don't see how anything could have been damaged in shipping without throwing it off a building. Box was not damaged at all, preamp and PS were individually wrapped very well in large bubble wrap, double boxed and padded with foam. The umbilical was neatly coiled in about an 8 or 10 inch circle and on top of the components, padding above and below it. No damage to anything. I'm sure of that. It just runs warmer than my other Cary PS but it has twice the work to do, more or less. The other one is phono stage only, this is preamp with MC phono. Probably makes the difference. It isn't scary hot, just warm.
The umbilical seems to be non-directional, has no arrows and both ends are the same. My Cary phono stage is directional with two different ends. Any thoughts on that? I started a conversation about directional cables and it lasted for a long time with no real conclusions either way as far as I can tell. Some huge arguments on both sides. So much so, that I lost interest in the whole idea. :)
To @billpete, I fired up the system later today and checked after work.
Results, on a scale of 1-10, and 0 being room temperature at 68 degrees, and let's say 10 is scorching hot to the touch where you can't leave your hand on more than 10 seconds without feeling burned - this is what I can share.
Rear/Back, 1
Top Rear, 1
Top Middle, 2
Top Front 3
Front Face, 7-8
The front is where the umbilical cord gets plugged in. The face does get pretty warm. About as hot as my Pure Class A 50w solid state amp gets and it's biased up pretty good. Hopefully that helps. If not let me know and I'll get temp gauges out this weekend.
Thanks for this. I think I'm comfortable with it after what you say. It gets warm, not what I'd call hot. I could leave my hand on easily without discomfort.
Where do you normally have your separate channel volume controls? I've been tying to figure out what sounds best, channels up, main volume down, etc. One thing for sure, I have plenty of gain.
Where do you normally have your separate channel volume controls?
@billpete, as far as the setting of your L and R input level knobs as related to the setting of your volume knob, I once started a thread about all the gain I have with my SLP-05. (I am only bringing this up because I am thinking the way Cary set the potentiometers up on both preamps would be quite similar). Too make a long story short (and I’ll paste a link to the thread if you are interested in the long story) there were opinions on both sides (surprise!) about setting the two input level knobs. But my ultimate take away was that there was more degradation to the signal the more it had to travel through the pots and having the pots turned all the way up was the next best thing to removing or upgrading them.
After typing that SLP-05 trivia, back in ’99 I bought a second hand SLP-90 that had been (and I quote) "hot rodded by Dennis Had himself." Part of that "hot rodding" included completely taking the input level pots out of the circuit. But the way I looked at it, they can be quite helpful for troubleshooting L & R channel issues so I actually sent it to Cary and had them un-hot rod it.
Anyway, in case it will be helpful (or entertaining) here is a link to that SLP-05 thread that I alluded to:
OK, so I went back and read this thread. Interesting for sure. It would appear that not quite "full open" might be best? Hard to say for sure but listening to how each one behaves is probably the only real solution. There are so many variables with upgrades and even tube choices. I am not using the phono stage in the 98, haven't tried it yet so I have to consider the values of cartridge choice, SUT and the tubes in the Cary PH301. I usually have 5751's in the 12AX7 slots and they are lower gain than AX7. I just like most of the ones I've used. All this stuff comes into play.
So far, I notice a little bit of graininess at the high end at times when things can become shrill. I mostly attribute this to new crappy tubes but time will tell. Overall, I'm very pleased.
One question that I have is "Are the L&R input controls doing the exact same thing as the main volume pot or is there something different going on here"?
Many moons ago, I had a Crown amp that had attenuators on it. I learned that running them about 3/4 up, gave me the best performance. For typical loud listening for me, everything came to life when the preamp volume knob got past 12, usually around 1 sounded best to me. I found this also to be true in a later system with Parasound preamp and amps. No attenuators on the Parasound amps but volume on the PLD 2000 preamp brought life to music from 11 to 1. With the Cary, it is considerably below that, using the same Parasound amps. I have had not had it much past 10 even with the input levels only halfway up. It seems to sound very good in this range but I am still evaluating, still burning in tubes etc.
,One question that I have is "Are the L&R input controls doing the exact same thing as the main volume pot or is there something different going on here"?
that is a great question, but it is one that I cannot answer. What I THINK is that they are essentially all doing the same thing, but that the L & R input level pots are not as good a quality as the main volume pot which is why (I THINK) that on paper, or in theory, performance would be best if they were set to maxed out and the main volume pot was the only adjustment used to adjust volume with. But I am unclear on that, so maybe we could get some clarification from @harpo75on this, as he has been quite generous with his time providing SLP-98 and SLP-05 answers.
So, @harpo75, on the SLP-98 (and presumably the SLP-05?) are the left and right input level pots doing the same thing as the main volume pot? And would the signal be compromised or degraded if the left and right input level pots were adjusted down from fully maxed out to compensate for all the gain of the SLP-98 (or the SLP-05) and allow for more available real estate using the main volume pot?
So far, I notice a little bit of graininess at the high end at times when things can become shrill. I mostly attribute this to new crappy tubes but time will tell. Overall, I’m very pleased.
. . . my own experience with my preamp probably is not applicable to this. I have had back and forth discussions with @decooneyrelated to Cary preamps and Cary amps, and from him I definitely have gotten the impression that the SLP-98 is voiced for a "sweet" sound (which I would think would be on the "warm" side) which should be on the opposite end of being shrill. The JJ tubes were previously discussed a bit in one of the previous threads and they generally get a bad rap, so I suppose that they could be the culprits. I’d still say if you can be patient enough (and I have always had a hard time with that, myself), give the tubes you have in it a chance to break in/burn in/mature and then see which way you think you need to go.
Although I think my own experiences are not applicable to the SLP-98, my SLP-90 is/was quite warm sounding and it made nearly everything I played sound fun and happy. So perhaps it was more forgiving of sub par source material (and with that typed, my source is strictly CDP). When I replaced that preamp with my SLP-05, what I noted was that with real good source material, the SQ was dramatically better--wider, higher . . . more/better detail and air and imaging and sound stage . . . but with poorly recorded/mixed/mastered source material . . . yuk. There are CDs with music I like that I don’t bother putting in my CDP anymore.
From what @decooneyhas said about his SLP-98, I would tend to think (but I may be reading into it) that the SLP-98 would lean tonally in the direction of what I found with my SLP-90 (but way more refined) as opposed to the direction I feel my ’05 goes.
I am not listening to the JJ tubes. I should probably just box them up as it's my understanding that I don't need them as long as I'm using a different phono stage. I should just be hearing the EH 6SN7 tubes which are not big favorites either. Two of mine are gold pin, two are not. Assuming the gold pins are better, I don't know which slots to put them in as I don't know which slots do what. I do not have a book on this preamp but will try to find one sooner or later. I have about 20 hours of listening/or at least on warm up, so far. Pretty much sounds the same at this point, not really burned in yet so I don't expect it to. I am not unhappy with anything and I appreciate where it can go from here. Nothing is so much as unpleasant, quite the opposite. I just get little details here and there that remind me of why I would seek out better tubes in the past.
I did find your thread even though the link didn't work. It's easy to find by the subject matter. Someone suggested that halfway on the input pots was a good start, which is about where I had them in the beginning. I tried dropping them down some to be able to increase the main volume but I don't think it improved anything and may have gotten worse. Not that any is bad because it isn't.
Having what seems like too much gain (maybe), I may remove the SUT and try without it. The only specs I can find on the Linn LOMC that I'm using, says that it has an output of .1mv which seems very low, even lower than my FR which has an output of .14. I think this may be wrong but I don't know. I suppose it could be 1mv and not .1mv. That would explain a lot. I almost always found that I would find more gain with Cd than I would with phono and now I am at around the same so something is different. I'll keep fiddling around til I figure it out. Thanks to all for all of the input.
I do not have a book on this preamp but will try to find one sooner or later.
@billpete, if you go to Cary Direct’s site, you may be able to find a manual to download. It might take some screwing around and navigating if they are not showing a SLP-98 that you can click on, but if all else fails, I am about 99.9% sure that if you call them on the ph and speak to the sales dept (they will actually talk to you on the ph if you want to buy something) they would sell you one.
It slipped my mind when I posted that you were inquiring about the 6sn7s. I recall that on a 6sn7 thread that a member, @mulveling, had some good things to say about the re-issued TungSol 6sn7. I am not trying to start a separate discussion or argument, but the only reason I have not tried them is a personal one. Again, not that my ’05 experience is applicable, mine came with EHs and it was still a better sounding pre than my SLP-90 was with more expensive 12AU7s. As I am pretty sure I have already mentioned on one of these threads, I am running with a pair of vintage 6sn7s (or variants) for my balanced inputs (one of the differences in our preamps) and am combining that with four more JJ 6sn7s in the other slots and I THOUGHT at the time after I made the switch that I liked the JJs better than the EHs, but that may have been because I WANTED it to sound better. Regardless, as I think I have also previously typed on one of these ’98 threads, a quad of better, probably vintage, 6sn7s is on my short list.
Thanks. I have read through this on Cary Direct several times. It isn't terribly thorough. It does say that the SLP 98 is phase inverted so that speaker wires should be reversed.?????????????????? I have not reversed mine and I certainly do not think that I'm out of phase. Wouldn't I be without bass? I have very solid bass, just ran the test record and tested down to 17hz. I could hear it well to 20 and tapered off after that. Not sure what that means. I should not hear anything that low but feel. Confuses me on exactly what the test record is doing. Hi Fi News LP.
I don't see anything in the owners manual that says the function of the 6SN7 slots as to which ones do what. I think I've read that two are gain and two are line? Not even sure how that translates. Maybe @harpo75will join the fun here at some point. @decooneywould know more than I do as well.
Mine is the SLP 98P, as you noted. It is also upgraded to MC and was built as F1. According to harpo, this was a request by Upscale Audio, I think. Pretty much none of these upgrades get mentioned in the manuals. I'll try to find a hard copy sometime, I just like to have one for each piece of gear. Not always possible but it's kind of amazing what can be found.
@billpeteif you are using the EH 6SN7s now, I'll share this. Like others, I used them to burn in new caps in the amp, and pulled them back out, placing them in their original tube boxes in the SLP-98 box and sitting in the rafters right now.
The original / older version of the SLP-98 with the soft rounded edge knobs on front is voiced a little softer, sweeter. The newer version SLP-98 with the sharp edged knobs can be a little more detailed, a tad more open, and worse [etchy or grainy sounding] so with the lowest cost EH tubes Cary installed in them new.
They did this from the factory (or old Dennis days) did knowing just about 95% of the owners were going to either A) swap in their best vintage 6SN7s, or B) some new reissue copy tube they liked to burn for longer even more.
My [stored away] vintage Sylviania 6SN7GT tubes are open and more detailed. They are not nearly as lush as the tubes I'm currently using.
My currently installed [recently new] PSVANE CV181 MKII in front, and TJ Full Music 6SN7GTs in the rear give the best balance of open and smooth for my system today.
If I want more even more smoothness retained, I just remove the rears and replace with another pair of PSVANE in the back.
If I want a tad more detail, and still no etch or grain, I replace the fronts for a full matching quad of the TJ Full Music. A tip to share later...
Right now, I'm intermixing both with PSVaNE in front and TJ FM in rear. The former designer (after Dennis) discussed this with me a few times. It works.
I like keeping two quads of each, where I can swap them all in, or half in, if that makes sense. Right now, past two years I'm sticking with half of each type.
The interconnect cables make a difference too. I have all Cardas Clear Reflection ICs now for a smooth musical sound. If I want a tad more detail and air, I can swap in my other pair of Aparture Silver-over-Copper ICs. This is what I really like about this preamp. I use it with my Monoblock KT120 tube amps or with my 50w pure Class A solid state amp both on rotation. Hope this helps. Good fun.
Thanks. I have read through this on Cary Direct several times. It isn't terribly thorough.
No, @billpete, the Cary manuals are not well detailed when it comes to tech info, but I am thinking that you will be hard pressed to find much else available. Thanks to @harpo75 on these last few threads, I have learned way more about my '05 than I ever learned from the owner's manual.
I don't see anything in the owners manual that says the function of the 6SN7 slots as to which ones do what.
@harpo75could probably help you out with that also, or maybe you could find a review online (such as Stereophile) that might talk about that. (They actually did on my '05.)
It does say that the SLP 98 is phase inverted so that speaker wires should be reversed.?????????????????? I have not reversed mine and I certainly do not think that I'm out of phase. Wouldn't I be without bass?
I think that now we are getting into the difference between absolute phase and relative phase which is another (of many) subjects I am terribly bereft of understanding on. Possibly @atmasphere or @harpo75would help us out on this as well but my initial thought is it might be a good idea to try red to black on BOTH sides as it would not hurt anything, and seeing as how Cary is saying that it is phase inverted, it might actually be an improvement of somewhat. I remember that you said the highs were somewhat shrill at times, and who knows(?), reversing speaker cables on BOTH sides might have a positive effect on that. It is free and easy to try, and if it were me, I would try it.
I'm keeping track of this, that's for sure. What about the input pots? What position do you keep yours in? Is yours stock, upgraded or??????????? Mine is the F1 and has the MC Lundahl upgrade, which I have yet to use. With yours, do you have to invert how you wire your speakers? I have not and it does not sound wrong to me. Do you leave yours in standby or off position?
As to IC's, I have a guy who makes them. I don't know what kind of wire he uses but he uses Neutrik connections. His cheaper ones use Belden wire. Not sure what the better ones are. I'm very pleased with them so far. It will be the last thing I probably think about as an upgrade. Getting all the gear together, tubes, lots to consider. Maybe someday.
@billpeteI have read through this on Cary Direct several times. It isn’t terribly thorough. It does say that the SLP 98 is phase inverted so that speaker wires should be reversed.??????????????????
Yes, my speaker wires are inverted / reversed at the speakers.
+ positive wire to - negative binding post on speaker. - negative wire to + positive binding post on speaker.
@billpeteDo you leave yours in standby or off position?
Best not to follow my advice on this. For you to decide. I turn mine off if I know I’m likely to leave the whole system off more than a few days. I do set to Standby for.a little bit before I turn it on though.
Wouldn't my system sound terrible if I have the speakers wired out of phase? I just went through a whole test record and to my knowledge, my system is OK the way it is. Very strange. I wonder if the F1 or some upgrades made mine different? I guess I can always try wiring my speakers the way you have and see if it sounds better or worse.
Will try wide open on the inputs.
I am doing the same as you are with standby/on/off. Standby seems to me that it would shorten the life of tubes. Not so important with the ones I have in now but I won't do that when I have expensive vintage tubes in.......if I do.
Check this 2019 thread, keeping this in the family here on Agon. Some of the regulars and good old forum friend Almarg weighed in on this one too when he was around. It’s not as critical but some people follow it. See the part about different recordings and other components in the system that are related. Almarg is still here in spirit!
Wouldn't my system sound terrible if I have the speakers wired out of phase?
@billpete, even though you addressed this to @decooney, I'll quickly butt in to say that if BOTH speakers were hooked up red to black they would not be out of phase with each other (if that's what you meant), and since the SLP-98 is phase inverted, I think that this would put them in phase with the preamp. I think this is the difference between absolute phase and relative phase. I think. @erik_squires is someone else who could probably clear this up for us.
(My CDP has a phase inversion switch so the phase of the CDP, in balanced mode, can be matched to the preamp; for a while I misunderstood the way my preamp was set up and I had the phase set wrong on my CDP and I could not hear a difference. Which is not to say that there was not a difference, just not one that jumped out and slapped my face. But it could be the difference between listening fatigue and happiness at the end of a multi hour session.)
@decooney, well, if I thought I was confused before I read through that thread, there is no doubt I am confused now! LOL! I'll try it again in the morning when I am "fresh", or as fresh as I ever am these days.
Wouldn’t my system sound terrible if I have the speakers wired out of phase?
@immathewj
Honestly no. Hahaha. You have to have a good trained ear. It just so happens I’ve run across 2 situations in a month at 2 different dealers where this happened and I alerted them to it. And these were not mid-fi stores either.
In one case the Russian oligarchy dude bought the out-of-phase Wilsons. In part because the phase reversal sounds cool and maybe open. However as others expect, bass was missing.
That’s for an entire speaker being out of phase. Individual drivers may have different weird effects. Like, if the woofers alone are out of phase, you’d only hear missing bass, but if say the midrange was out of phase (relative to other speaker) I imagine it would sound odd in other ways. Some even use these types of effects to create pseudo-stereo. Kind of. So, no I don't expect this would be truly horrible.
The OP has bi-wirable speakers, so easy to test woofers and mids with a battery.
I do think for the OP it's good to check the basics. Make sure all drivers are actually working, and that they push/pull in the right direction before talking power cables... :D :D :D
Going to try reversing speaker leads today. May also try the battery test just to verify that the AR9's are in phase to begin with. Can't imagine that they are not but you never know I guess. I have mistakenly wired speakers out of phase many years ago and bass was very clearly lost, which alerted me to checking the wiring.
I don't mean relative to each other, I mean out of phase, period. It seems very odd to me that Cary would make a preamp this way but the manual clearly states that you have to wire your speakers the reverse of normal. Not L and R but Pos to Neg terminal. Would love to hear what @harpo75would have to say about this.
Went back and read that old thread. Very interesting, to say the least. Hard for me to imagine so many things being recorded out of phase or speakers being wired out of phase etc. Is this poor quality control or is it intentional? Seems awfully odd to me. I guess this is at least one reason why we favor some recordings over others. I know there are many reasons but this just becomes another.
I think that now we are getting into the difference between absolute phase and relative phase
@billpete@decooney@immatthewj50% of all recordings are inverted relative to absolute polarity. So its not important to have the speakers inverted. Just make sure the speakers are in phase with each other.
Many preamps invert phase, its no big thing. Our balanced preamps have a phase inversion switch on the front panel. Most of the time you can’t hear it simply because absolute polarity is hard to hear if there are more than two microphones used in the recording.
It seems very odd to me that Cary would make a preamp this way but the manual clearly states that you have to wire your speakers the reverse of normal.
@billpete, a few years ago (I've lost track) before I bought my '05 I saw a '98 listed on either Uncle Kevin's site or on Cary's preowned section, and I was interested in it and giving it some consideration. After downloading the manual and reading it, I remember posting a question on Audio Asylum asking why a manufacturer would intentionally design a preamp as phase inverted. Someone answered, and I cannot remember the answer which means I probably did not understand it. I'll see if I can find that question on AA and if so I'll tell you what I was told then . . . but I don't have high hopes because the search function there is not as good as it is here and since I deleted my membership there I cannot log in and find it by retrieving my old posts.
Anyway, you did say that you are going to reverse your + & - hookups at your speakers, and I am thinking why not. After all, as I typed before--easy and free. After reading the responses and through that thread that was posted, I am inclined to now think that it won't make an audible difference, but I'd still say to try it.
As far as what you said about this being why maybe some source material just sounds bad, that is the same thing I was thinking after I finished reading that thread. But now, I am thinking probably not. Regardless, with some of those CDs that meet that criteria (just don't sound very good) I think maybe I will try them with the phase switch of my CDP set to inverted just to see if they sound any better.
Worth pointing out that most multiway speakers need to reverse the polarity on one driver or another. That's normal.
By convention (but not requirement) the woofer is in positive polarity and then drivers above that may be flipped as needed. In a 2-way it's common to see the tweeter inverted, in a 3-way the midrange is often. Depends on how the phase/frequency alignment works out.
The inversion in the preamp happens when you have a single tube gain stage. The famous Conrad Johnson PV10 and related pres were the same way. CJs philosophy was to minimize circuitry as much as possible so an additional tube just for polarity inversion seemed counter productive.
Personally I absolutely cannot tell absolute phase and don’t want to learn. 😆
Also, if memory serves, the phono stage in a PV10 was served by an additional single stage, inverting the phono inputs relative to line level.
I will stop here qnd say no more so Ralph can add a couple of pages of caveats, and exceptions to this. 🤣
Have inverted pos neg speaker wires. Wil let you know what I hear. AR9's are 4 way and have 5 speakers. I tried the battery phase test and found nothing. Not sure what went wrong.
I am truly baffled by all of this as to how much is in phase and out. All the participation is greatly appreciated.
The battery test will only tell you which way the woofer goes. It should move one way or another. The crossovers up above will filter DC and prevent you from learning much more. If you aren't getting much movement, consider a 9V battery, or C/D cell.
That would explain it then. I only tried the top half and gave up. Surely, they are phased as they are meant to be anyway.
When I reversed the pos neg wires at the speakers, everything sounded wrong to me. Not terrible but not as good either. There was loss of bass and all else seemed muffled, loss of detail I guess. This just can't be how it is meant to be. Maybe mine got changed to normal phasing in one of the upgrades? I have no idea but it sounds too good to be out of phase. I may try it again sometime but my son and I both said the same thing about how it sounded. I only tried two songs on a bass heavy Cd. Switched them back and am back to normal.
I'm going to contact the guy who I bought it from to see if he has any insight into it as well. Thanks for all the input.
There is an inexpensive app called “Speaker Pop” which can tell you the polarity of each driver. It works as described. I’ve used to make sure that each speaker was wired with the same polarity. You would be surprised at how many speaker “pairs” are not wired the same.
I am doing the same as you are with standby/on/off. Standby seems to me that it would shorten the life of tubes.
@billpete, I was going to throw a couple of cents in, but I got distracted by something else; anyway, my SLP-90 also has a standy switch (I am sure the '94 did as well) and I used to leave it off most of the time also. If I remember, when I was going to listen (and I am no longer someone whose system is playing all day long, slthough I miss those days) I'd put it in stand by for a while before I would turn it to 'on'. I am sure this will be debunked, but in my mind it was sort of (sort of are the operative words) a soft start. I say sort of because I think all that happens in standby are that the heater filaments are getting power, so the tubes are already warm to some degree.
On the standby subject, and this is probably tmi, in '94 I bought my first tube amp; it was a Cary SLA 70 Signature and it also had a standby switch. I was totally new to tubes (or better end altogether) back then, and I made so many stupid mistakes and called cary tech support up with so many stupid questions . . . anyhow, that little amp has four 6550 output tubes and I left it in standby 24/7 X 365. Somewhere down the road, probably after tubes were worn out and I was trying to figure out what was wrong, I was talking to this great tech guy Cary had at the time (a big shout out to Kirk Owens, where ever he may be now) and he told me that it was not his advice to have my amp always in standby.
I think Cary says to leave in standby mode 24/7. I don't. Seems counterproductive to me to keep any part of the tubes working all the time. Plus, I'm anal about leaving anything on unattended. Hazards of being a retired firefighter. It doesn't have to make sense to everyone. We don't care what you think. :)
So............I run mine as you do. From off to standby for awhile, full on for awhile. Listen and enjoy.
I think so, it sounds mostly good to me. Still on the cheap tubes and letting them burn in. That considered, I think it sounds very good.
Sometimes I think maybe the Linn cartridge is worn down. I tried to put my FR cartridge on the Linn but there is not enough room for it. The Linn cartridge is very "stubby" and is about all there is room for.
By source do you mean like Cd player instead of the Linn? I have been mostly checking with Cd because I don't completely trust my cartridge and have been rolling tubes in and out of the Cary phono stage as well. The Cd has been my quick reference since it has had no changes made. I will try reversing the speaker wires again at some point but I need to get some baselines to be sure of what I'm hearing first.
Hi @billpeteand yes, that's what I was asking about. Good to know. Now that you are getting use to it the sound with the current tube set, there can be room to grow for sure. When my 98 was new, it came with the four standard EH tubes, it was okay, yet not close to where it ended up staying the past 4-5 years. A few times I did rotate back through the new EH, TungSol, and a few others that were nice, but not the best. While I still have some of my vintage sets yet I ended up settling on new re-issue tubes that matched better with my system. Good Luck to you and yours on the next steps whatever you decide to do.
Can you tell me which of the 4 slots for 6SN7 are doing what? I can't find that info anywhere. If it's in the manual, I missed it. Mine has 2 gold pin and 2 standard, all EH. Not sure if there is a strategic placement for the GP's vs the standard as they should be better.
@immatthewjapologize I probably should have clarified that early on, I did not run the gold pin EH, and cannot speak for those, I was referring more to the original EH which came stock in my 98 and those are metal pin, not gold pin.
@billpete there are two pairs of course, 2 - 6SN7 buffer cathode followers, 2 - 6SN7 line stage. The front two are for the gain stage and apparently play a crucial role in amplifying the signal before it is sent to the output stage. Most recommend placing higher-quality tubes in these positions to achieve better sound quality.
I’ve played a bit putting the more transparent in the front, and then vice-versa, with the softer ones in front. Whatever sounds signature I want, I put the opposing pair in the rear as one approach. Another aspect I like about this preamp and why I keep it.
Gold Pin EH - probably best to share your experience here for others as I’ve never tried them, and just jumped up to other tubes as those gold pins came out later.
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