Has anyone compared Rogue RP-7 to Cary SLP05 and / or Audio Research Ref 5se?

I had an RP-9 and it has no bloom - more SS like in its presentation. ARC Ref 6 has just a *little* bloom, is technically amazing; nicely positioned between tubes and SS, sonically. VAC preamps have bloom, a romantic sound, and gorgeous mids with increasing levels of articulation and soundstage as you move up (just watch gear pairings so the bass doesn't get a bit tubby). I’d expect any good preamp designed around 6SN7 to have great tone and good airiness. 6H30, 6922, and 6SN7 are all great preamp tubes. 12AU7 not so much.

The Electro Harmonix 6SN7, like many EH tubes, have a brash & rockin sound. A bit of extra zing on top, with great bass impact and decent mids. They’re really not a bad tube at all, any way you slice it. And they typically measure at a good deal more transconductance than vintage / NOS 6SN7, so for some slots they’re just perfect. Usually they make excellent driver or follower tubes because of this. In V1 / gain slots you can usually find improvement with the sweet tone, extra airy top end, and more holographic image of vintage greats. But also, good luck finding quiet-enough vintage tubes for those kinds of slots! And the EH 6SN7 won’t get embarrassed anyways UNLESS the gear has been voiced for warm vintage 6SN7GT tubes. Then yeah - the EH tubes are gonna sound too bright in that gear!

For now I've settled on a mix of Russian Tung-Sol 6SN7GTB (very similar to the EH tubes) in V2 and Tung-Sol round plate 6SN7GT in V1 in my VAC 200iQ amps. That's one common pattern of tube rolling 6SN7's - a lot of us end up favoring mixed makes, rather than all of one kind. That way you sort of sum up the different kinds of "magic" each make offers. 

Cary has been shipping this preamp with EH 6SN7 for ages, so I’d guess it will sound great that way. Haven’t heard one, but admired from afar for quite a while. Beautiful preamp. Enjoy!!

I thought that the reason that Cary sent them out with EHs was because they were readily available & affordable. 

They WERE cheap and abundantly available, before the recent events of this year. They were also a fun example of "wow these are cheap as hell but they can actually sound GREAT in the right slot!". I know people will come out with "my 1941 space forces 6SN7GTSF with double helix plates and radioactive green glass BLOW THEM AWAY". I have many vintage greats here too. The Russian EH and Tung-Sol 6SN7 still have their place.

i was inquiring with a company about a slp-05, he said dont get that, get atma sphere instead,which he also sold. said was better and cary was having problems with their gear. last how does cary, slp-05 vac, standard le. atma sphere mp1 i think and vtl 5-5 rank with and against each other...

Lol, the classic dealer-trashes-gear-he-doesn’t-sell trope. Extra trope-y if he frequently drops brands, and quickly turns from praise to bashing them too.

Atmasphere is a great brand btw - no issue there. But this stuff is so system and preference dependent. It’s one thing to go from a budget preamp to say a Cary SLP-05 or Atmasphere, or ARC Ref 6. That will usually yield a HUGE improvement most audiophiles can agree on ("giant killers" only live in the print of "professional" reviews). But when comparing units at this level, at some point you just gotta try the stuff for yourself. Nobody can tell you what you’ll enjoy most. Synergies and setup (including tube rolling, sometimes) is key.