Cary slp-98p owners!

it has been several years since i had a cary slp98p - one of the issues i had with the unit was the phono stage did not have a very low noise floor... it worked ok as a line stage but i found the phono stage unacceptable in terms of background hiss, even after trying numerous sets of tubes in the unit -- iirc i was using a benz glider medium at the time -- this for only 40-43 db of phono stage gain... no bueno...

ultimately i went to an audio research ph3se then i moved eventually to solid state units (lehmann decade and ayre p5xe)

I too formerly owned the SLP98P some years ago.  I also felt the noise floor was a bit high and the overall sound was on the lush side, sacrificing detail, articulation, and slam.  The Leben RS30EQ MM tube phono I use now is substantially better to my ears and pairs wonderfully with an A23 SUT ( I use the version configured for EMT carts). 

I chose to keep the phono stage [delete] outside of my SLP-98L

I know what you guys mean by noise floor when I first bought it like first change the tubes to a tested set. And I was able to lower the noise floor by changing the power cord which helped significantly plus power conditioning. Found the best power cord for the preamp to Lower noise floor was a shunyata alpha analog. But just got a used shunyata sigma analog and made an even profound difference. Plus moving the preamp closer to the power amp brought up the noise floor. I’m currently using a music first audio sut for my Cary since it has a mm phono stage in it and has 3 different grounding options via a switch which helps. I would like to keep the sut in the system if I bought another phono  preamp not a wasted expense.