Used tube preamps, Cary, AR, Aesthetix, Wells...........or?

@billpete ...There seems to be a group who does not like it and another that does.

You can find a differing position on the internet for just about anything if you look hard enough. And people typically like what they have when they own it at the beginning. You can find posts by the same person two years later after they sold it and share what the did not like about it. You have to try things in your system to know if you like it or not. One person likes something better or worse than the next person.

Unless others have all the exact same components and room size/shape you do, it’s a crapshoot at best. Next comes your ears and preferences. You can get general ideas when someone is comparing A vs. B, and take that with a grain of salt. Go listen in different places if you can. Thats more fun and helpful to get ideas. Also you'll see certain groups of components paired up together that people have found experimenting prepping for shows and audio showrooms and such.  

@billpete - totally understand. Thanks for the added context about the situation. Well, the old buy / demo / keep-or-return thing works too and how many go about this. I buy from the places you mentioned and the few returns I’ve made, never had any issues. If you do decide to retrace the Cary path, the 98s come up from time to time. I enjoy mine, bought it new, and use it for my tube monoblocks and SS amps both, fwiw.  

@billpete Nice. Another one you might consider adding if you are looking at The Calypso is Dan’s Modwright LS100 Tube Linestage. Uses lower gain 12au7s vs. the prior 12aX7s now. TMR has them. Being bold, I would hope it would stomp the prior MF you had, but maybe that’s just me liking what we see under the hood I have not clue how it sounds, but I was talking with Dan about his amps some.

His phono stage seems to be a separate unit if you require that. If I did not own my Cary SLP98 that I keep, might be fun to try one of Dan’s preamp/linestages. Maybe another to add to your list fwiw. If anything, something else to look at, compare to. :)

@billpete as per your post above, and @harpo75’s note, so are you thinking you might keep the Cary PH-302 as your phono preamp and then use that with a Cary SLP-98L or some other preamp of your choice then? If so, then maybe it might be fun to just hang on until the right SLP-98L comes up again. I’ve been watching the used market on SLP-98s and SLI-80s for friends over the past 5 years since I got my Cary SLP-98L new and sold my prior Cary SLI-80 and Cary V12R both. Btw, harpos post reminded a mention to say the suffix of "L" is for Linestage, "P" is for built-in phono preamp if that was not already obvious. And reference to harpo mentioning the "P" in SLP-98P with built in phono preamp. You probably knew this already I suspect. I bought the "L" version in case I ever wanted different external Phono preamps.

Now seeing more of the newer version 98s units pop up the last two years as people move to different DAC/Tube/Preamps and such for streaming and such. It’s been around a while and people move on to the latest and greatest, whatever the flavor and new hype of the year is it seems. I care less about all of that, and happy to say my 98 preamp is going nowhere any time soon. :)

@awise1961 Congratulations on the Aesthetic Calypso. I owned an Aesthetix Callisto Eclipse preamp and Rhea Signature phono stage for some years prior to changing over to an all Conrad Johnson system. For 6922 style tubes, I had preferred either late 60’s Siemens CCa’s or ECC88’s.

It's interesting when we see members move from a capable product set to something else like in your case. Possibly looking for a particular signature of sound you were aware of (???) -or- just to make a change since they’ve been with the prior components for a while, this happens too - people just want to try something else of course. @awise1961 gotta question for ya if I may ask. 

Sometimes friends of mine do this too, in an attempt to steer back towards something they had or knew well in the past, looking to recapture that "sound".

• What were some of the reasons you decided to switch from your prior (capable) components to the "all Conrad Johnson system", if you don’t mind sharing more?

Pros/Cons to each of these different setups. I find it truly depends on the type of sound you are going for. CJ, Cary, ARC, Pass, Aesthetic, and more...

A colleague has Harbeth 40.2s he paired ups with his CJ 6550 Monos and a CJ GAT preamp. He then bought my upgraded Cary V12R, sold his older SLP-98 preamp, and went out and bought the latest Cary SLP-98 like I have, he added Mundorf caps, and compared for a while. He likes both systems for different reasons when paired with his Harbeth speakers. He also has B&W Speakers that he moved his CJ gear to,. and it worked well for him there. The Cary gear was paired up with the Harbeth speakers for a while, and I went and listened to it back and forth between the Cary and CJ gear. Each system, CJ or Cary had its own type of sound. One was more open and velvety, other a bit more laid back and smooth.

He then took my former upgraded Cary V12R and tried it with these high $ ribbon speakers, https://alsyvox.com, and he and his buddy could not believe the sound compared to other gear at 5x the price. Why? [synergy, matching, different type of sound - maybe]. Perhaps it was just a new/different presentation to hear.  

I put more credibility to "matching" now days than anything else. Amp A or B might sound better with different speakers, each in their own way. What it comes down to as my audio buddy drills into my head, "it all comes down to your preference", "whatever you like" is what matters most. Preference varies a lot between many of my own friends and audio-buddy colleagues, fwiw.

To @billpete not sure if I mentioned it, a colleague owned a Red 98 F1, it still had the original caps in it as upgraded.  He tried it for a while with the Cary V12R amp I sold to him. He had been comparing it to his $17k Conrad Johnson preamp from his other system. He wanted to emulate the newer 98 preamp I had at the time. So rather than him upgrading it to the newer Mundorf caps [with a little more transparency], he sold the F1 pre to his good friend to try, and bought a brand new 98 pre with the newer Mundorf caps some liked more. The main difference in change of sound was the caps and tubes in the new 98 preamp. The difference was enough for him to put the $17k CJ preamp up for sale, and using the upgraded 98 pre for both amplifier systems.  As I recall ,the downside was it took a long time for that new preamp with Mundorf caps to form / settle in / break in - but he liked the change. I'm not suggesting changing caps in your F1, however this topic does come up if the older style caps are installed from that era of the original F1s that got shipped out. You might like the original caps installed, many had the original gold Jensen Oilers in the F1 preamp. Can sound nice with more transparent gear and speakers.   At some point, it is worth checking inside, maybe the caps have been changed since anyhow.

The 98 preamp responds well to different coupling caps inside, and you can flavor it to how you want it sound. After 72hrs of play, you'll get an idea of how it sounds in your system. Have fun. :)