What is it about the Cary SLI-80?

The Cary SLI-80 is a gateway drug. Proceed with caution. I had one with all the F1 upgrades and a set of upgrade tubes from Upscale. Heck, the HEADPHONE AMP was almost worth the price of admission...
I ran it with the 306 SACD into Triangle Celius's for a year and a half. Extremely musical. Fed the system all Nordost Valhalla, I liked it so much (I don't know why more audiojunkies don't do this. Used high-end cabling SO maintains its value...). Made the mistake of upgrading the speakers to Coincident Super Eclipses. This opened the floodgates. I bought a pair of Frankensteins, and that woman wouldn't let me keep the Cary.
I still miss it; but its the 300 SEI that gets me salivating these days. Imagine the headphone amp THAT thing would have.

Any time I stop by a local dealer, I always have to pause and listen
to the Cary SLI-80 driving the booksheld JM labs and always have an urge to order one. Clean, clear and musical..yes, the Cary SLI-80 could be very addictive as Azaud said, indeed, it is a very good drug. Dunno why they are on the used market but if you are not a headbanger type of listener, you will appreciate what the gem it is.

Azaud
YOU sound as if you were happy with the Cary what caused you to switch to the Frankensteins and how do they compare?

Hello Gentlemen,

I too had a sli-80, and had no intentions of selling it. One day I had a Mcintosh 2500 power amp walked into my room. It was a friends who wanted me to sell it for him. Out of curiosity I hooked it up with some sub par speaker and power cables I had laying around. It sounded amazing, ( I had an old c-30 preamp as well) the most "real" sound I had yet to hear out of my Spendors (my then speaker) so I had no choice but to sell the Cary. But, I used that money to buy a slp-98 preamp. I owned another Cary preamp long ago, and I have always liked their sound. I think some speakers ( like my Vandersteen 3a's) might need a bit more power then what the sli-80 is capable of, or it may just be a synergy/voicing thing. If you like the Cary sound and your speakers are fairly efficient, I'm sure you'll love the sli-80. If you have been thinking about sli-80's you will definitely see more of them around. They are beautiful.

I appreciate all the responses. They are helpful. Once I owned a pair of Cary 572SE amps and they were incredible. All the hype about tubes was really true! They ended up being a major hassle, though, because of the downfall of the Svetlana 572-3 triode. I went through about 12 defective tubes in 3 months (at about the same time, Dennis Had pulled the amp off the market). I moved to an upgraded McCormack solid state amp and life was easier, but I've never forgotten the seductive sound from those tube amps. The SLI-80 seemed like a relatively painless way to get back in, so I've been giving it a lot of thought. Now I'm thinking even more!