Is the Cary SLP-05 still relavant?

@charliee I own and love the SLP-05 and have used many amps.  

For the high gain of the balanced out I recommend an amp with 20 db gain ideally, the Pass Labs XA25 was perfect.  Possibly 22-23 db but not many amps have that kind of low gain.  

For the single ended outs you can match to any amp- e.g. 26 to 29 db gain.  Trust me on this. 

Thanks avanti1960, that’s very helpful. I am favoring a Coda amp, or possibly the Atma-Sphere class D mono’s.They both have balanced and single ended inputs. The Coda has 26db of gain, the Atma-Sphere class D has 22db. So if I want to run balanced, the class D’s appear to be the better match with the SLP-05.

I had the SLP 05 with ultimate upgrade for a few years.  It's a great preamp, maybe not the final word in transparency but certainly falls into the camp of classic tube amp (warm) sound.  It's audio jewelry, built like a tank.  I actually preferred the Schiit Freya + personally after spending months going back and forth between the two.  I was using some CBS Hytron tubes in the freya that made it sound a lot better than the stock tubes and those tubes cost almost as much as the preamp itself but it's really good for the money.  I don't think you will have a problem matching the SLP 05 to any amp.  It has a lot of gain, you won't be much over 9 O'clock on the dial with the volume.  

The stock SLP-05 sounds much better incrementally with an upgrade to a NOS GZ34 tube rectifier as well as the 6SN7 tubes.  Each move resulted in a much better sound than with the stock tubes. 

I landed on a Mullard or Mullard made f32 rectifier along with Sylvania 1950s 6SN7GTA tubes.  

If you like the way it looks take a photo because it probably won’t last. My V/U lights were constantly burning out. Customer service was rude, arrogant, stupid & expensive. I’ll never buy another Cary.

My comment from 2018:

https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/848038