"Too much gain"? (Cary SLP05 question)

All right sorry! I always explain too much.

@harpo75 no, not at all! Thank you! I like the sound of tubes when everything is running good, but I really do not have the mind for comprehending a lot of this stuff.

It almost sounds like you would agree with the previous advice that @russ69 offered, which was to use the RCAs?

I guess I am feeling stubborn about that because of the $ I invested in my balanced Kimber Silver Streaks. If I do go to my RCAs, the best I have on hand (right now) are my Kimber PBJs.  (I also have a bunch of Monster, but I don't think that was ever very good interconnecting.)

I am going to continue to be redundant and reiterate that I can, in fact, find a place with the big knob where the I am good with the level--but my question was related to whether the quality of that level would be better if I could achieve it at a higher than 9 o-clock setting of the volume knob.

Thanks again!

LISTEN TO THE DAM PREAMP!

The balanced connections sound noticeably better (pre outs). The balanced circuitry passes through another set of tubes. Just do a quick AB comparison. That is all it took for me. The balanced soundstage is huge and more open with distinct separation between instruments, it is really something.

Using the RCA outs the sound stage is instantly collapsed and less exciting, very obvious.  

I choose balanced every time. Give it a try from your listening position.

Philharmonicpete - Yes the total gain is reduced about 3db to about 21 I believe on the ultimate upgrade. The reason is that the plate load and cathode resistor values were changed which changes essentially the “slope” if you will, of the sound.  This made the sound less thin and a little more full in the bass and midrange.  I liked this as I always thought the original 05, although great, was a bit thin and a hint bright for my taste. Also all the better Mundorf caps and beefed up power supply cleaned it up.  So the gain wasn’t purposely reduced (although it has more then it needs) it’s more of a byproduct of the value changes on the plate and cathode.

The headphone circuit is very good.  The only thing to upgrade there would be better output transformers to improve the bass response and overall sound quality. Maybe something like the Lundahll or Sowter or something like that.  Of course it has to fit too!  I thought it would be nice to look into but I never have.

immatthewj - By all means the SLP-05 sounds much better run full balanced.  Don’t go back to RCA single-ended.  You won’t like it after running balanced.  Balanced is fuller sounding, more dynamic, better imaging, cleaner, etc.  
Cary Audio of course won’t upgrade the controls or headphone output transformers.  They are only going to put in what they supply.  You’ll need a tweaker to do that.  I’m sure there’s plenty of people on the forum that have the expertise to tackle that if they wanted to. 

I owned an SLP-05 as well. It sounded great in many ways, but I ended up selling it because (you guessed it) it had too much gain (and hence noise). I tried various attenuators, including Rothwell's,  and the input controls on the pre itself, and they helped but ultimately  compromised the dynamics. I paid for the Ultimate Upgrade but the small reduction in gain was not audible to me. Cary told me that dynamics would be compromised if they attenuated further. 

I replaced the Cary with an integrated (Ayre AX-5/20) and have been very pleased.

Good luck.

@shredder 

do you know how much gain your power amplifier has?