If anyone is still looking for a SLP-98

I believe I was told Jensen caps. The tubes are EH 6SN7, I think 2 are gold and two are not. AU's and AX's are JJ. Probably not what I want to hear. I have quite a lot of vintage AU's and AX's and variants that will be better than JJ's. I've never had or heard JJ's but what I read isn't so great. This is only the phono side I think so might not really affect me too much since I use the Cary PH301 phono pre. I just thought it was a fair option to have the P version, especially with the Lundahl MC upgrade. If the PH301 ever goes down or is off for repair, I still have a phono section that I might care to use. I have others in other preamps, they just don't do what I want. 

As to a local tech, probably nothing within less than 3 hours of where I live. My son does some of this but he is amateur at best. I have done a little too but this stuff makes me a bit nervous. We'll see what I find when I get the preamp. Thanks for all.

I don't know how good the EH tubes are. Never had or heard any of them either. I'm sure I'll be looking for vintage tubes at some point. 

@billpete , I remembered a thread where someone was sort of considering/looking for a SLP-98, but I couldn’t remember the thread or who the OP was, so when I got the preowned notification email from Cary Direct this morning, I figured I’d pass the word.

Anyway, it sure reads as if you have got yourself a nice one. Although it wouldn’t be a factor for me, that Jaguar Red is pretty. A couple of things I was not aware of until I did a look on Cary’s site was that it uses 12au7s and ax7s for the phono stage, and I didn’t know that it used solid state rectification until you mentioned the Hexfreds. Btw, I have read that the Hexfreds make a big difference.

As far as the JJs and the EHs go: I have heard mixed about both of them. On the JJs, probably more bad than good. But I do have a tube guru friend on another site who swears by the JJ 12ax7s. I owe him more than one favor, so I had some Mullard 12ax7s I took out of an old Bogen receiver and I offered to send them to him as I have nothing that uses them. He emailed me back, thanks, but for his money the JJ12ax7s were as good as anything out there. I’ll dig through my emails back & forth from him and see if I can find that one and I’ll paste that content to this thread.

As far as the EHs, my SLP-05 came with EH 6sn7s, and I actually decided to try JJs in the phase splitter sockets. I cannot honestly say that I can hear a big difference in either direction. Vintage 6sn7s in those sockets are on my list. As far as the two balanced input sockets, the tube guru who I referred to a paragraph or so ago gave me a plethora of pairs of vintage 6sn7s (he no longer has equipment that uses those tubes, but when he did I believe he may have been a tad OCD) and I have found that some of those vintage pairs for the two balanced inputs transform the sound of that preamp. So, as I typed, a vintage quad is on my list. If the phase splitters had the sonic effect that the balanced inputs have . . .that should be another "wow!" moment.

Anyway, good luck with that new to you preamp; I am sure you are going to enjoy it, and feel free to keep us updated.

Thanks for all.

Seems to me that Brent Jessee speaks well of the EH and JJ's but I may be mixing him up with another tube site that I go to. Most who sell something will have at least "something nice" to say. Hard to sell things if you say, "hey, these are crap but maybe you'll like them". :)

Seems to me that Brent Jessee speaks well of the EH and JJ's but I may be mixing him up with another tube site that I go to.

Hmmm . . . I think that you may be mixing him up with another site.

Tube depot maybe but I think Brent Jessee does sell some EH and JJ tubes. Any modern tubes I've ever had looked to be very poorly made. I haven't had a great deal of them but Mazda, some Chinese and Yugoslavian (EI?) tubes and none were what I'd call good. All that said, I have not had EH or JJ so I will be hearing them one of these days. Seems to me I read good things about Gold Lion and I think they are fairly new, or even still current, not sure.

So, having Hexfred rectifiers, does that make the SLP 98 a hybrid?