The old Stereophile review of the CAD-300SEI is a hoot to read. The reviewer was Bob Harley and he had generally superlative things to say about how it sounded.
Examples: "It was unmistakable, however, that the 300SEI communicated the music in a way I'd never experienced before. There were an immediacy and a palpability to the sound that were breathtaking"
"This liquidity and lack of electronic artifact produced a relaxation and intimacy with the music that made me want to play records and CDs long into the night. In fact, I spent night after night totally immersed in the musical experience provided by the 300SEI and the Compositions."
"The 300SEI was a musical revelation, providing a totally involving and musically euphoric experience night after night. The 300SEI excelled in the most important areas: harmonic rightness, total lack of grain, astonishing transparency, lifelike soundstaging, and a palpability that made the instruments and voices seem to exist in the listening room."
But then came John Atkinson and his measurements. Here's some of the things that JA had to say about them:
"Given the fact that Stereophile would not recommend at all a loudspeaker that showed as unflat a response as the Cary when driving our standard simulated load, I don't regard this amplifier as a hi-fi product at all. It is actually a tone control, and an unpredictable one at that."
"The 300SEI's crosstalk is shown in fig.5. The amplifier measured a straight 40dB of channel separation across the audioband—mediocre performance at best. This poor measured separation may have been due to noise as the signal/noise ratio was also less than impressive."
And this by Bob Harley:
"I could be kind and use the phrase "less than ideal" to describe the 300SEI's technical performance. But I'll tell it like it is: this amplifier measures so poorly it's a joke."
Cary Audio Design CAD-300SEI integrated amplifier | Stereophile.com