Cary SLI-80 tweaks and improvements?

A couple things here as I’ve owned the SLI-80 a couple times both upgraded F-1 varieties. It’s a great amp and IMO will never be confused sound wise with SS and has definitely has that tube magic with the right speakers. Duane, the upgraded volume control I believe you refer to is actually an input selector switch that Cary offers an upgrade from factory standard issue to Grayhill brand which was included in the F-1 Editions.

Cary still only lists these including the Grayhill switch. A local colleague did additional upgrades on mine beyond the std stuff Cary offers. The newer upgrades were better imo than the older F1 upgrades. The newer Mundorf caps really made a difference over the older Jensens too on my buddies 98 pre. He had both versions in his preamp too. I sold mine, will see I if I can find the name of the upgrades volume potentiometer etc. Cary does not offer it iirc. 

I received a reply from Cary.  It looks like their upgrades have expanded beyond what's on their website.  They now offer an upgraded choke as well as some Solan bypass caps that can be installed.  Also, the larger coupling caps are now Mundorf caps as decooney mentioned.  Mine must be a bit older since I have the Jensens in the kit.

I'm emailing the gentleman there for some clarification on a couple of items.

There's a local technician that I found that mostly works on vintage guitar tube amps that I have used to test my tubes as I come across them.  I'll see what his thoughts are if he wants to tackle this project.

What's funny about this thread is the amp sounds quite good, actually.  But since we can be a weird bunch and I think I must have been spoiled with the Decware, here I am chasing that last bit of detail.  

Decooney,

I have a couple of other questions:

1) When installing the 4 Hexfreds, do they just replace the standard diodes that are there, while retaining the tube rectifiers, or are they meant to replace the existing tube rectifiers all together?  The installation "diagram" doesn't say anything about this.

2) I can't seem to locate a Grayhill volume control pot mentioned anywhere such as a part number or anything on Cary's website.  Would you have that info, as well?

Thanks for all the replies and help, so far!

1) yes, you are replacing them as I understand it.  Best to ask Cary what they do.  Personally I like the tube rectifiers but I'm sorta old school in my thinking perhaps.  

2) Grayhil is the updated input selector switch, as pehare noted above.  

I'm not sure where my local tech sourced the volume control and he's long retired and out of all that now. Just doing the caps, input selector, silver wiring at the back to one set of inputs and possibly speaker terminal too can help.  

As noted, there is nothing wrong with the stock form amp, has it's own warmed signature the stock way too. The new/upgrades add a bit more transparency and detail IF that's what you are looking for. Some are NOT.  A personal taste imo.    I originally had the Jensen oilers in mine and later went to the Mundorf caps. The older-older gen1 version Jensen oilers should be replaced, they had some batches fail years back. This leaned many to try the newer Mundorfs that had different results most seem to like.  Best to go for it and listen, see if you like it or not.