New Cary Preamp Has Landed

Jack in Wilmington

Jack in Wilmington

Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2013
Messages
196
Location
Wilmington, De.
The SLP-03 arrived yesterday. Nicely packaged and you could tell it was as advertised, NIB. Setup was pretty straight forward. I had to remove the jumper pins from the XLR connections on the Pass Labs amp and I was able to use my VooDoo power cord as it fit perfectly on the Cary outlet. The remote is nothing to write home about, I mean it's nice enough, but it must serve some other components as the only buttons that work on the preamp are the four at the bottom. Power/Mute, Selector, Balance and Volume. Now to let the tubes "burn in". After dinner I cranked up the CD player to get some initial impressions and it sounds pretty good. I know a friend said his BAT was a little rough at first, but this is about four hours after initial burn in started. Off to our nephews volleyball match this morning and then some vinyl later.

Cary SLP-03 004.JPGCary SLP-03 002.JPGCary SLP-03 003.JPG
 
I'm approaching the first 50 hours of break-in and the midrange warmth of the SLP-03 is just amazing. Soundstage is much deeper than with my Anthem, but not as wide. There is a natural detail to the instruments. You can tell a violin from a viola and a flute from a piccolo. The single biggest change to me is the bass. It has now been brought forward out of the background and it has bite without being boomy. It's the kind of bass that you feel when the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I just played my new vinyl LP of "Thick As A Brick" and this is probably the one piece of music that I've played the most in my life. I have the original CD, the remastered CD, and now the 180 gram vinyl ( the original vinyl sounded so bad it had to go). This was undoubtedly the best I've ever heard it sound.

So far I'm very pleased with the Cary preamp. It has brought back the tube warmth I was missing without being too warm. I might not recommend this pre with a speaker that is overly warm like Sonus Faber or Vandersteen.
 
Jack - that's good to hear. Are you using the stock tubes? Something to try in the future would be some different 12AU7's.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Mike said:
Jack - that's good to hear. Are you using the stock tubes? Something to try in the future would be some different 12AU7's.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Just getting the stock tubes burned in. I've been looking at some NOS Mullards and some RCA's. Any other suggestions on tubes?
 
Jack in Wilmington said:
Just getting the stock tubes burned in. I've been looking at some NOS Mullards and some RCA's. Any other suggestions on tubes?
Click to expand...

nice Jack!! glad your liking the new preamp. maybe down the road you get a few different kinds of tubes to find that perfect sound for you. i have a preamp that uses just 1 12au7 and i was looking at these just for the great price for a great quad of matched tubes.
THE ULTIMATE NOS Matched Quad Tesla ECC802S/12au7/ECC82 tubes : Tube Maze, Perfect Audio Experience .
 
For some reason I collected 12AU7 tubes and have quite the stash in my tube caddy. Telefunken, Mullard (including the MIL-SPEC versions with the big box plates), Amperex, RCA Cleartops (damn nice tube by the way), Brimar, and on and on.
 
mep said:
For some reason I collected 12AU7 tubes and have quite the stash in my tube caddy. Telefunken, Mullard (including the MIL-SPEC versions with the big box plates), Amperex, RCA Cleartops (damn nice tube by the way), Brimar, and on and on.
Click to expand...

I'm impressed that you have a tube caddy. I didn't even know there was such a thing. Do you have any gear that use the 12AU7?
 
Jack in Wilmington said:
I'm impressed that you have a tube caddy. I didn't even know there was such a thing. Do you have any gear that use the 12AU7?
Click to expand...

In the old days of vacuum tube TV sets, every appliance store that sold them had techs that came to your house and kept your TV running. They all arrived at your house with a tube caddy. I have 3 different tube caddies, but my pride and joy is a Sylvania tube caddy that is in great shape. My other two caddies are junkers.

As to your question; at present, I have nothing that uses 12AU7 tubes. I used to build my own tube preamps from scratch and they were all based on the 12AU7. There is tons of gear out there that uses 12Au7 tubes, I just don't happen to own any of it now. I still have my large stash of 12AU7 tubes though.
 
I have been looking for a tube caddy for a long time. I ended up using a tackle box. I am currently selling off most of my tubes, mostly 6CG7's from my Van Alstine gear which I am phasing out.

Jack, how does the Cary compare to your Anthem preamp? Is the sound stage opening up?

BR
 
Mechnutt said:
I have been looking for a tube caddy for a long time. I ended up using a tackle box. I am currently selling off most of my tubes, mostly 6CG7's from my Van Alstine gear which I am phasing out.

Jack, how does the Cary compare to your Anthem preamp? Is the sound stage opening up?

BR
Click to expand...

It is widening up as I had hoped. The tubes now have 100 hours on them and the midrange is liquid. I had Steely Dan on this evening and there is a lot going on when they are playing. You could pick out where each performer was on the stage.
 
Mechnutt said:
I have been looking for a tube caddy for a long time. I ended up using a tackle box. I am currently selling off most of my tubes, mostly 6CG7's from my Van Alstine gear which I am phasing out.

Jack, how does the Cary compare to your Anthem preamp? Is the sound stage opening up?

BR
Click to expand...

Tube caddies come up on Ebay all the time, the problem is that most are beaters. I scored my awesome caddy at a ham fest years ago.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top