Cary SLI-80 Thoughts?

I have Cary and Primaluna amps among others. To my ears Cary is the winner but the Primaluna integrated is a well-built, good sounding integrated with many pluses including the auto bias feature that makes tube-rolling a snap, easy to tailor your sound.

The Cary is the best integrated I've used, by a good margin. I've owned the Cayin, Pathos Classic, Rogue, and many others. All good, but the Cary is the keeper for me.

go w/the Cary like dan says...i've owned or tried in my system the arc vsi55, rogue cronus magnum, mac 6900 & a couple others that escape my memory at the moment & the sli80 is vastly superior. enjoy!

Hi Snackeyp -
One item to keep in mind is that the SLI-80, at least in my system (Arcam CD36 and Spendor S6e) was not the last word in dynamics or bass department.
I auditioned tt and really liked it -much better than the Cayin A88T IMHO.Top end to midrange it was spot on but I ended up keeping my SS Classe CA-101 because it was able to give me the extra slam /dynamics and bass that the Cary could not.
I did miss it, but everytime I started up some Radiohead, Incubus or Zepp... it just did not win me over. I blame much of it on my speakers...but such is life. Not sure about your Harbeths.

My main system is all Atma-Sphere but I wanted a Cary integrated for a second system and I wanted the F-1 direct coupled, all-triode version; preferably with the cool blue chassis and silver face plate.

Well, it took a while but the one I wanted finally came along and I couldn't be happier! It throws a big, open, airy soundstage with great imaging and layering front to back. It also has a wonderful tonal balance that sounds very natural and believable.

The all-triode version only puts out 40 wpc but sounds like a lot more and will easily drive reasonably efficient speakers quite well. Frankly, I've heard several amps that were switchable between triode and ultra-linear and I've always preferred triode by a wide margin.

To my ears, the bass is more than adequate but I'm running KT-88's. I know some people like the EL-34, which is what my Cary came with(two different sets) but both sounded too sweet and syrupy.

I broke down and bought a quad of the Shuguang Treasure tubes and glad I did. Still sweet and organic like the EL-34 but way more open, transparent, and extended at the frequency extremes. Also, noticeably more weight and power to the music.

I also replaced the factory buffer, driver and rectifier tubes with NOS which also took things up a couple notches.

For the money, an SLI-80 will be hard to beat. I've had mine for seven months and it's a keeper!