Cary SLP 98 users, past and present, are there any left?

So far, I notice a little bit of graininess at the high end at times when things can become shrill. I mostly attribute this to new crappy tubes but time will tell. Overall, I’m very pleased.

. . . my own experience with my preamp probably is not applicable to this. I have had back and forth discussions with @decooney related to Cary preamps and Cary amps, and from him I definitely have gotten the impression that the SLP-98 is voiced for a "sweet" sound (which I would think would be on the "warm" side) which should be on the opposite end of being shrill. The JJ tubes were previously discussed a bit in one of the previous threads and they generally get a bad rap, so I suppose that they could be the culprits. I’d still say if you can be patient enough (and I have always had a hard time with that, myself), give the tubes you have in it a chance to break in/burn in/mature and then see which way you think you need to go.

Although I think my own experiences are not applicable to the SLP-98, my SLP-90 is/was quite warm sounding and it made nearly everything I played sound fun and happy. So perhaps it was more forgiving of sub par source material (and with that typed, my source is strictly CDP). When I replaced that preamp with my SLP-05, what I noted was that with real good source material, the SQ was dramatically better--wider, higher . . . more/better detail and air and imaging and sound stage . . . but with poorly recorded/mixed/mastered source material . . . yuk. There are CDs with music I like that I don’t bother putting in my CDP anymore.

From what @decooney has said about his SLP-98, I would tend to think (but I may be reading into it) that the SLP-98 would lean tonally in the direction of what I found with my SLP-90 (but way more refined) as opposed to the direction I feel my ’05 goes.

@immatthewj 

I am not listening to the JJ tubes. I should probably just box them up as it's my understanding that I don't need them as long as I'm using a different phono stage. I should just be hearing the EH 6SN7 tubes which are not big favorites either. Two of mine are gold pin, two are not. Assuming the gold pins are better, I don't know which slots to put them in as I don't know which slots do what. I do not have a book on this preamp but will try to find one sooner or later. I have about 20 hours of listening/or at least on warm up, so far. Pretty much sounds the same at this point, not really burned in yet so I don't expect it to. I am not unhappy with anything and I appreciate where it can go from here. Nothing is so much as unpleasant, quite the opposite. I just get little details here and there that remind me of why I would seek out better tubes in the past. 

I did find your thread even though the link didn't work. It's easy to find by the subject matter. Someone suggested that halfway on the input pots was a good start, which is about where I had them in the beginning. I tried dropping them down some to be able to increase the main volume but I don't think it improved anything and may have gotten worse. Not that any is bad because it isn't. 

Having what seems like too much gain (maybe), I may remove the SUT and try without it. The only specs I can find on the Linn LOMC that I'm using, says that it has an output of .1mv which seems very low, even lower than my FR which has an output of .14. I think this may be wrong but I don't know. I suppose it could be 1mv and not .1mv. That would explain a lot. I almost always found that I would find more gain with Cd than I would with phono and now I am at around the same so something is different. I'll keep fiddling around til I figure it out. Thanks to all for all of the input. 

I do not have a book on this preamp but will try to find one sooner or later.

@billpete , if you go to Cary Direct’s site, you may be able to find a manual to download. It might take some screwing around and navigating if they are not showing a SLP-98 that you can click on, but if all else fails, I am about 99.9% sure that if you call them on the ph and speak to the sales dept (they will actually talk to you on the ph if you want to buy something) they would sell you one.

It slipped my mind when I posted that you were inquiring about the 6sn7s. I recall that on a 6sn7 thread that a member, @mulveling , had some good things to say about the re-issued TungSol 6sn7. I am not trying to start a separate discussion or argument, but the only reason I have not tried them is a personal one. Again, not that my ’05 experience is applicable, mine came with EHs and it was still a better sounding pre than my SLP-90 was with more expensive 12AU7s. As I am pretty sure I have already mentioned on one of these threads, I am running with a pair of vintage 6sn7s (or variants) for my balanced inputs (one of the differences in our preamps) and am combining that with four more JJ 6sn7s in the other slots and I THOUGHT at the time after I made the switch that I liked the JJs better than the EHs, but that may have been because I WANTED it to sound better. Regardless, as I think I have also previously typed on one of these ’98 threads, a quad of better, probably vintage, 6sn7s is on my short list.

. . . this should be a download for the manual on yours:

https://www.caryaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SLP-98_manual.pdf

I believe yours is the SLP-98 with the 'P' suffix?

@immatthewj 

Thanks. I have read through this on Cary Direct several times. It isn't terribly thorough. It does say that the SLP 98 is phase inverted so that speaker wires should be reversed.?????????????????? I have not reversed mine and I certainly do not think that I'm out of phase. Wouldn't I be without bass? I have very solid bass, just ran the test record and tested down to 17hz. I could hear it well to 20 and tapered off after that. Not sure what that means. I should not hear anything that low but feel. Confuses me on exactly what the test record is doing. Hi Fi News LP.

I don't see anything in the owners manual that says the function of the 6SN7 slots as to which ones do what. I think I've read that two are gain and two are line? Not even sure how that translates. Maybe @harpo75 will join the fun here at some point. @decooney would know more than I do as well. 

Mine is the SLP 98P, as you noted. It is also upgraded to MC and was built as F1. According to harpo, this was a request by Upscale Audio, I think. Pretty much none of these upgrades get mentioned in the manuals. I'll try to find a hard copy sometime, I just like to have one for each piece of gear. Not always possible but it's kind of amazing what can be found.