Is the Cary SLP-05 still relavant?

I think that I answered that by looking into the rockwell’s.. gives a much better range of volume control not such large steps. I will try to track some down here without paying excessive shipping from uk. Thanks again.

Despite being forced out years ago the Dennis Had designs are still the class of the Carey line of electronics.

After spending a week with 5he SLP-05 I can enthusiastically say relevance is not age or recent press review dependent. Great designs are timeless unless they are obsoleted by technological breakthrough and I don’t believe 5hat has happened with preamps since the Cary came out. I agree with avanti1960 the sound is neutral, detailed and very musically engaging. This piece sounds fantastic in my system.

I am ordering the Rockwell attenuators as the gain is too high, there does seem to be some discrepancy as to the exact gain but it is definitely a bit high with the Pass amp. Well back to a snowy listening session.

a couple updates on the slp 05 after ~75 hrs.
i bumped up my amplifier’s gain from 50 % to about 75% because i noticed a slight reduction in the jump factor from the initial setting at full amplifier gain. parasound a21+. sounds much better, the sound really "pops" again. at 29db gain at full throttle i am guestimating about 21db gain through the amp, running half gain on the slp 05. i am using balanced outputs on the cary and max gain is 24db so pushing about 12db at half gain.
running stock tubes so far, tried a batch of NOS tungsols and ran into hickups. the stock eh sound excellent, the product must have been well voiced with them.
i did change the rectifier to a nos amperex and it bumped up the bass and warmth a noticeable amount without ill effect.
so far it sounds stunning.

Update: I put the -10dB Rockwell attenuators in and that worked great. Volume knob now between 10 and 12 o’clock on most listening and SLP-05 balance set at 100%.
I still haven’t tried any other tubes but may look at that rectifier tube @avanti. My vinyl source material is amazing through the Cary and I have a new streamer/Dac coming tomorrow so that should be fun too. Are you guys leaving the SLP-05 on 24/7? Manual recommends yes but seems like there is a lot of disagreement on this. If I will be away for more than 12 hours I have been shutting unit off.