Cary Audio SLP-05 First Impression

Wow, Xcool, as a relatively new SLP05 owner, that was a bummer to read.

My experience in the past with Cary Audio (SLA70, SLP90, power bank, V12) has been extremely positive. That stuff I listed was/is extremely reliable & when I did have questions, their telephone tech service was great. Their customer service, back then, was a big part of what kept me a customer.

About a year or so ago, my 20 year old V12 finally had a signal cap shoot craps and I wasn’t super thrilled with the tech support. I sent an email that wasn’t responded to, so I sent a couple of more, and what I got back was an email telling me to send them the unit & what their shop rates were. On a different audio forum than this one, an extremely kind and helpful & patient member exchanged about one thousand emails with me & I troubleshot & changed all 4 caps myself.

After that I had decided to swear Cary Audio Design off, but I heard so much good about the SLP05 with Ultimate Upgrade, that when a preowned one came up on their site I pulled the trigger &, like you, ordered the upgrade.

I understand your dilemma. I think if it was me, and MD was willing to refund me the price of the pre AND the upgrade, I’d reluctantly go that route.

I’ll be watching to see how this works out for you.

. . . I just looked at a note I made re my own, and I am usually reading 230 to 240 VDC and 55 to 60 Ma.

I am also curious: in the email exchange, what was the troubleshooting advice that Cary Audio gave you?

Here are the things that I was told to try:

- unplug all the source connectors, and power up the unit and see if the meter readings go back to normal. 

- check the fuses on the power unit. 

- make sure the unit is not on mute. 

- he did notice from the pictures i sent that my tubes were not inserted all the way in. He was correct.  They really weren’t pushed all the way in because i was afraid if i use too much force, i might break the tubes.  I ended up trying to push them down with a little more force and they all went further in and were seated properly.  Somehow  I was able to play it while the tubes were not completely inserted for a good 3 weeks.  Anyway, this didn’t solve the problem either. 

- Finally I was told to switch my sources to different connectors.  I had a balanced source and a unbalanced source at XLR2 and Aux1.  So I changed them to XLR1 and Aux2.  That didn’t work, but I found some other problem.  After i switched the connections,  I turned the unit on at XLR1, and no sound was coming out.   I then turned the source dial towards Aux2.   It skipped over XLR2 and Aux1.  When the dial landed on Aux2, all the LED lights went off, as if I have powered off the unit, but the power unit remained on.  I then switched the dial back to Aux1, the power LED came back on, and after a minute or so, the ready light came on, much like the normal power on routine.  It was pretty messed up.  I made a youtube video and sent it to Cary, but haven’t heard back since.  Here’s the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpWUXSan4Ig

Yes, the tubes fit tightly in those sockets. Personally, I would prefer to grip the tube by the base when I inserted it or removed it, but that was one of the first things I noted about this pre that I thought was flawed about the design--the fact that the tube sockets are recessed about 2" below the top of the pre, & unless you have tubes with higher than usual bases, you can’t do that. I was a bit worried about breaking something on the board by pushing to hard, myself.

As far as the plate voltage & plate current, I am definitely not an electrician or electronically minded, but I was thinking that those were indications of what was going through the tubes (ie "plate"), but  Cary didn’t suggest anything about the tubes.  (I thought it was indicating the bias of the preamp tubes.)

I have to find my computer headphones in order to hear anything that I am watching on my computer, so I will give that a go later on. With everything that is going on, I am kind of thinking that I would be inclined to take the refund from MD, but, will you have to eat the cost of the upgrade?

Hey @immatthewj,  I assume MD will give me the full refund, but I didn't ask explicitly.   

I'm pretty disappointed with this issue.  How unlucky can it be to have 2 defective units in a row, even though the first one was very minor.