"Too much gain"? (Cary SLP05 question)

Wow, thanks for all the input, everybody!   I need to sit back & digest it.

@harpo75   I actually did get this unit with The Ultimate Upgrade installed.

As far as the two balance controls, I have kept them maxed out for normal listening and in the past, with my SLP 90, I did find them useful for troubleshooting.  As far as having them taken out of the circuit, in '99 I bought my previous preamp, the SLP90, second hand from a dealer.  He told me it had been "hot rodded by Dennis Had."  What that meant was that, among other things, the balance control pots had been taken out of the circuit.  That SLP90 was a huge sonic upgrade for me, but I thought that most of the "hot rodding" that had been done to it made it totally unresellable (except to some dummy like me) so I called Cary up & spoke to Kirk Owens about undoing some of the mods.  As far as the defeated balance controls went, Kirk told me that in theory (or on paper) there was some signal path degradation, but whether it could be heard was another matter.  Sooooo, I did wind up having him put balance controls back in, and on the receipt for the work that he did, he referred to them as "improved quality L & R balance pots."  (And I did always run them maxed out, but I did, quite often, find them useful for troubleshooting.) 

Hey @immatthewj, I didn’t realize you’re the OP.  I think you had commented on the other Cary thread that I started.  Anyway, I just had an email exchange with Cary support about this gain issue.  Apparently they have a service called Gain Reduction on the unit to lower the gain by 6db.  It costs $140 plus parts and labor. I decided I’m not going to do that, but it’s an option for you to think about.  

@xcool thanks for the info on that.

Could you clarify

It costs $140 plus parts and labor.

I assume that is a typo, but maybe not? $140 + shipping maybe?

Anyway, have you been able to just fine tune with the big knob to find your "sweet spot"? Personally, I am thinking I can get the volume where I like it (although it does get there fast) but I just wasn’t understanding for sure whether the same volume would have a better sonic quality at, for example, 6-oclock versus 3-ocklock. Out of curiosity, did Cary Support offer anything on that part of the subject?

And how did you make out with the SLP05 malfunction you had posted about?

EDIT:  OOPS on that, I just reread your reply and I see you are using the left & right input level pots to compensate with.

Hi @immatthewj,  the cost is actually $140 bench fee plus parts and labor.  He didn't specify how much is parts and labor.   Sorry about the confusion.   Anyway, I decided not to go for that mod.

Although the Cary support person is very nice, sometimes he doesn't give me a straight answer.   I was trying find out from him whether Cary recommends leaving the left & right gain dials at maximum for best sound quality.  He never really answered my question.  Instead, he offered the gain reduction modification if I think the gain is too high.

As mentioned in my earlier post, I've been setting the gains at 3 o'clock position.   I haven't tried that many different combination of gain settings between the Cary and my power Amp.   I might try to do that when I get my unit back.    

Looks like my unit is pretty much fixed, they have been running it continuously over the weekend to make sure everything is alright.   I expect them to ship it back to me some time this week.    I'll try to post an update once I get it back.

@xcool the confusion is not your fault. I just would have thought that for a job parts + whatever the hourly rate for labor is would have covered a job. I may be out of touch on that as I really try to farm as little as possible out. Like for The Ultimate Upgrade, for example, they give you what the rate is for the job (kind of like getting your ball-joints on your auto replaced); I wonder why they don’t do that for the Gain Reduction Mod.

Although the Cary support person is very nice, sometimes he doesn’t give me a straight answer [. . .] He never really answered my question.

Haha. Yeah. There was a time when I used to rave to anyone who would listen to me about Cary Audio’s telephone tech support. I will say no more on that subject.

As far as using the ’input level’ pots in conjunction with the ’listening level’ (the big knob) pot to compensate for gain, reading through the replies I have received, there do seem to be two schools of thought re that. As I typed in one of my last responses to a reply, way back when I bought my Dennis Had "hot-rodded" SLP90, Dennis must have felt that L & R input level pots were, at least to some degree, degrading the signal path (but that was 30 years or so ago he built that preamp, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the pots are better now a days). I said I would say no more about a certain subject, but I really don’t see why Cary Support cannot provide a simple straight answer on that. Oh well, one of many things in life that I do not understand.

So, not to be redundant (but I guess I constantly am), but for me the bottom line is that I can find a volume setting that makes me happy, and if there is no difference in sonic quality between a certain volume at 3 o-clock & that same volume at 6 o-clock (and reading replies, there seem to be a couple of schools of thought on that as well) I am good with it as it is. I think it would be useless to try and get a straight answer from CAD Support on that also.

Hey, it is real good to hear that you will be reunited with your SLP shortly. I bet you are loving that news. And since you didn’t mention it, I am assuming that, at least for the time being, they didn’t tell you what was broke..