Cary SLP 98 users, past and present, are there any left?

@immatthewj apologize 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.

@decooney 

@immatthewj 

Thought I'd post an update on how I'm getting along with the SLP 98. I'm having fun with it and enjoying the music. Makes my cd's more listenable than I've ever had in my system. Still fiddling with tube rolling but mostly in my phono preamp (Cary PH301). It's been a bit of a challenge to find the right synergy between the two Cary pieces but I seem to be getting close to what I've looking for, at least with what I have on hand.

I have swapped turntables, cartridges and done a lot of tube rolling. I haven't spent a ton on tubes for the SLP 98 just yet but am currently enjoying Sylvania chrome top GTB's in front and Raytheon GTB's in back. I'm still confused as to which tubes are gain and which are output. If someone can clarify that, would be nice. I've tried 3 different pairs of Sylvania GTB's, two red letter pairs and one green letter pair, all chrome tops and I think all 50's vintage. For whatever reason, the current pair of red letters sound the best and better than the green letter in the front of the preamp. I had EH gold pins in back but found them to be a bit "ringy" with high treble. Is this microphonics? I almost always find this with cheap Chinese tubes. Anyway, putting the Raytheons in made a big improvement. Waiting for a few more tubes that I bought, some older VT231's. 

I did use the original EH tubes around 100 hours to break them in. They weren't terrible but they weren't great either. One pair is the standard pin, other pair is the gold pin. I don't consider either of them as a permanent fixture. The vintage ones are far better. More detail, better bass, overall tightness and no ringing or microphonics. 

I have mostly evaluated the SLP 98 on cd's since I've been going through so many changes with turntables, cartridges and tubes in the phono stage. It kept seeming like nothing was right. I will try the SLP 98 phono stage again, once I get all sorted out with the PH301. As I said, I"ve found an odd synergy between the two as I've never had two tube pieces working together before. It seems to complicate things but I am getting close to what I think things should be. 

Another thing I did was go back to having the speaker wires reversed, as Cary says to do and decoony said to do as well. At first, I thought it sounded bad that way but I think I was having the synergy issues between the two Cary's that I was having to sort out. To keep it simpler, I went to evaluating mostly cd's. Tubes, cartridge choices and settings have all had a hand in what was baffling me. Still working on it but getting there. 

@billpete just caught your post from an alert and I've been off this site for a good while.  I tend to listen more in the winter darker months.  

Sounds like you are getting there. The Sylvanias might be nice to keep for a good neutral detailed sound. I have a nice matched set of mid 60s Sylvania black plate 6SN7GTs I store and pop in once in a while. For a little more weight and body I'm still running my PSVANEs up front, in the gain stage, the two front tubes.  PSVANE had replaced these with a new version and I like them well enough, not wanting to change to anything else, but that's my system of course. 

As to your question about which tubes front/rear we chatted about this a while back earlier this year about the gain/buffer stage tubes, a reference here if you still need it.  Put your best 6SN7s you like up front in the 98. As for the phone preamp tubes in the 98, I'm no help there as I purposely did not order a phono section in my 98 pre.  I'm not sure if you are using the 98 phono section plus your existing [other separate] phono pre, I have no clue. My local audio dealer in business 56+ years has been selling these little external Red color tube phono preamps and most feel they are good enough for vinyl listening, keeping it outside of the main preamp.https://ag-forum.herokuapp.com/posts/2787379  

Also worth noting - cables connected to my 98, etc.  This past winter I went through another round of obsessive cable comparisons [again, 10th time, LOL], going in reverse direction. I tried more pairs of step-down lower-cost interconnects to see if I could find something of great value to compare to what I have settled back on now.  Nope, nothing, after a few months, back to the better cables and the 98 and my SS or tube amps respond well to the better interconnects hands down.  Also helps in revealing tube changes.  I wanted to mention this because I don't change preamps much any more, my 98 is my baseline preamp mostly past several years. Another thing to test and obsess about if you have not gone there yet.  Have fun.