Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Not widely reviewed, but the Cary SLP-03 is one damn fine preamp. Fabulous tube sound without the fuss. With the SLP-05 as its stellar big brother, I think this gets wrongly overlooked. Great value.

Pairs extremely well with my NHT 2.2 Xd system. The Xd is an amazing system, very revealing, and the Cary does a great job of balancing out the sound. Previous preamps were solid state Krell and Adcom GTP-750, both were a bit too harsh and left a bit of "transistor-itis", even when running the Adcom in passive mode. Adding the Cary added a level of relaxation to the listening, not tubey and overly warm, but to me, just right. And I have yet to experiment with NOS tubes.

I have my entire music collection ripped uncompressed onto a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo streaming wirelessly to a Logitech Transporter, which is run fully balanced into the NHT XdA amplifier through the Cary SLP-03 via Harmonic Technology Pro Silway II balanced cables. I also use a Marantz SA-8001 SACD player and Oppo DVD for playing high resolution SACD or DVD-A via unbalanced Pro Silway II. The Transporter supports 24/96 playback for downloadable high-res tracks from sites such as HDTracks. If you have not experienced hi-res audio, very highly recommended, you realize how constrained the CD format is. Prior to the Cary, I did not enjoy many CDs, that is not the case now, the Cary makes normal CDs much more listenable with more natural vocals with more air around the performers.

The Cary SLP-03 was the missing link that made my system "just right". I may tinker with tube rolling just to see where it takes me, but I do not feel compelled to run out for the next upgrade. The Cary is that good. I don't know if it will complete your system, but it sure did it for me.

Price Paid:  $2500.00 from Upscale Audio

Summary:
This is a phenomenal true balanced preamp. The sound is fluid and realistic. Prior to owning the Cary audio SLP 03. I was using only solid state components. I always thought that some of my music sounded harsh when listening to my stereo especially rock music. I tried everything to correct this issue. I switched to silver IC’s and bought new speakers cables, but I still noticed a harsh sound although not as pronounced as before, it was still there. When I first listened to the Cary SLP 03. I was surprised on how good it sounded out of the box, but it didn’t have a real warm sound. What it did have was balance to it that I never heard before. The highs were crisp and airy and the midrange was colorless. The bass was tight and had impact on the music. As I mentioned earlier with my solid state preamp the sound was real harsh at times, but with the Cary SLP 03 the harshness was gone nothing, but transparent sound and incredible sound stage from wall to wall. For less than 3 G’S you’ll get a class A dual mono design using 12AU7 tubes for the output stages and 8 regulated power supplies.

Strengths:
Sound stage
transpart sound
tight and fast base
Build quality

Weaknesses:
The remote control is small and poorly laid out

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