Thanks. Will check it out.
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.
Showing 17 responses by billpete
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. :) |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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 @harpo75 will join the fun here at some point. @decooney would 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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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 @harpo75 would have to say about this. |
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. |
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.
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