New Cary Preamp Has Landed

[Jack in Wilmington]

The SLP-03 arrived yesterday. Nicely packaged and you could tell it was as advertised, NIB. Setup was pretty straight forward. I had to remove the jumper pins from the XLR connections on the Pass Labs amp and I was able to use my VooDoo power cord as it fit perfectly on the Cary outlet. The remote is nothing to write home about, I mean it's nice enough, but it must serve some other components as the only buttons that work on the preamp are the four at the bottom. Power/Mute, Selector, Balance and Volume. Now to let the tubes "burn in". After dinner I cranked up the CD player to get some initial impressions and it sounds pretty good. I know one of my friends said his BAT was a little rough at first, but this is about four hours after initial burn in started. Off to our nephews volleyball match this morning and then some vinyl later.

[Jerome W]

Congrats !
Cary gear is awesome.
We want pics !

Sent from my iPad using A.Aficionado

[jdandy]

[PlanarSpeakerFan]

Congrats Jack! The SLP-03 is a terrific preamp. I've had a number of opportunities to audition it and this particular component significantly benefits from tube rolling.

Enjoy,
Ken

[Jack in Wilmington]

Originally Posted by PlanarSpeakerFan

Congrats Jack! The SLP-03 is a terrific preamp. I've had a number of opportunities to audition it and this particular component significantly benefits from tube rolling.

Enjoy,
Ken

I read that Ken and agree. I can see some Mullards NOS or some RCA NOS coming my way. Any other suggestions on tubes?

Here are some pics guys.

Cary SLP-03 002.jpg

Cary SLP-03 003.jpg

Cary SLP-03 004.jpg

[jdandy]

Jack.......Looking good. Very clean front panel that compliments the other gear in your rack.

[PlanarSpeakerFan]

Great system, Jack. I really like the rack. Mullards NOS and RCA NOS are exactly what I was thinking too. For more suggestions, you could try Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio (big vintage tube dealer) or John Rutan at Audio Connection (big Cary Audio dealer).

Best,
Ken

[Jack in Wilmington]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Jack.......Looking good. Very clean front panel that compliments the other gear in your rack.

Thanks for the help with the pictures. It looks better when somebody with skills is at the keyboard.

[Formerly YB-2]

Very nice. Looking forward to some 'review' comments once you've had a chance to do some vinyl listening. My black SLP 03 arrives Tuesday.

[Jack in Wilmington]

I'm approaching the first 50 hours of break-in and the midrange warmth of the SLP-03 is just amazing. Soundstage is much deeper than with my Anthem, but not as wide. There is a natural detail to the instruments. You can tell a violin from a viola and a flute from a piccolo. The single biggest change to me is the bass. It has now been brought forward out of the background and it has bite without being boomy. It's the kind of bass that you feel when the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I just played my new vinyl LP of "Thick As A Brick" and this is probably the one piece of music that I've played the most in my life. I have the original CD, the remastered CD, and now the 180 gram vinyl ( the original vinyl sounded so bad it had to go). This was undoubtedly the best I've ever heard it sound.

So far I'm very pleased with the Cary preamp. It has brought back the tube warmth I was missing without being too warm. I might not recommend this pre with a speaker that is overly warm like Sonus Faber or Vandersteen.