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.

billpete

@billpete 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.??????????????????

 

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.  

@billpete Do 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.

@decooney 

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. 

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