Price Paid:  $0.00 from 3 day demo from Soun

Summary:
3 day in-home demo: I can't forget the sound of these beautiful and artful tube monoblocks on my MartinLogin Monolith IIIs electrostatics. I returned the amps to my dealer and since his $$ was too steep, I declined to purchase - not being really convinced at the time. I purchased a Pass X350 from a private seller. The Pass is the best SS amp I have ever heard and is very impressive in many ways, but I still recall the SLAM-100 magical liquid mid and upper range. Extremely realistic sound when driving the ML speakers. The MLs are ultra clean and detailed and reveal the worst and best in electroncis, rooms and source material. But the SLAM-100s sound was seductive - it produced a more liquid and holographic mid and upper ranges. Its bass was also the best tube bass I have heard but it still had a small trace of the classic tube bass bloom that became distracting after several days. Fortunately, my MLs are bi-amp capable and I am now looking for a used SLAM-100 for the ELS portion and will use the precision X350 on the subwoofer sections. That should be an awesome combo.

Strengths:
Magical holographic midrange and highrange. Clean, quiet and 3-D. Excellent bass power and detail (for a tube amp). Very musical - can listen (even loudly) for hours without "listener fatigue". Beautiful to look at, esp at night. Reasonable used Prices.

Weaknesses:
Bass has slight bloom with my MLs (which themselves have a slight emphasis around 100Hz), but better than any other I tube amps I have listened to or owned. Once you ever recognize this tube "feature" however, bass bloom is easy to hear and hard to ignore. Can't help but wonder if the magical Cary midrange was in reality a tiny bit of 2nd order harmonic energy. Who cares what caused it? It was ear candy!

Similar Products Used:
(in home use) Marsh A400, Pass X350, Parasound HCA2200, Dynaco ST-70, ST-70 (modified), Dyna Mk-III, Dyna Mk-VI (modified PS),B&K4420

Price Paid:  $4500.00 from Future Sound, Burlin

Summary:
I had spent several years auditioning power amplifiers, and never came close to considering a tube amplifier. Too many complications, spongy base, etc. etc. I had scheduled an appointment to audition the Wadia 860x with the Krell FPB 300 and B&W Nautilus Speakers. After about 20 minutes I left the room. My ears couldn't take the harshness. While walking through another room, I heard the Cary's. I told the sales person "That's the sound I'm looking for." It just sounded real. No harshness, no glare, just pure vocals. After auditioning several other solid state amps, I bought the Cary's, Wadia and Nautilus speakers. The combination is extremely synergystic, and absolutely magical. Always buy a complete system if you can. I have several musician friends, and have spent many hours listening to small venue live performances. Yes, there are solid state amps that have more etched detail, and rock heavier at the bottom end. But they don't sound as natural. For me, its all about the sound, and of course, the music.

Strengths:
1. Beautiful Sound 2. Georgeous Construction 3. Good value for the money considering the cost of solid state monoblocks

Weaknesses:
1. Wish they performed in pure Class A, instead of AB1. I turned up the bias a bit to bring out more inner detail. This pushes the tubes to perform closer to a pure Class A voltage range. 2. They stopped making them.

Similar Products Used:
None

Price Paid:  $0.00 from Used

Summary:
System: -2 Cary SLAM-100s -Cary SLP-98L (upgraded with 6v6 & 6SN7 circuit mod.) -B&W Nautilus 804s -Monster Z-2 Bi-wire cabling -Misc CD players and DACs As my musical tastes vary wildly, I had some major reservations in jettisoning transistors for tubes. While I have heard amazing mids and highs reproduced from both modern and old tube systems, I haven't really heard tubes reproduce percussion instraments as well as solid-state amps. After a great deal of research, I was fortunate enough to stumble accross a fair deal on a pair of SLAM 100s. From the people I'd talked with and the little info I could read on the Net, the SLAMs seemed to be designed to do a fair job on the low-end... thus, the inspiring SLAM nomenclature. The past months with the SLAMs have really opened my eyes and ears to the capabilities of modern tube systems. These SLAMs are much more versitile than I had ever anticipated. It seems that there's no style of music that these things can't handle effortlessly... breathtakingly (this may also have something to do with my SLP-98). The SLAMs can operate in both push-pull and triode mode. The SLAMs are so powerful in triode mode that I've rarely really needed to switch to push-pull... though it has been fun on occasion. The point is that this amplifier seems to really be capable of delivering radically different listening experiences, depending upon what you throw at it. The highs and mids are seductively sweet at all levels. This amplifier can reproduce stunning detail even at whisper levels (quite handy for when my wife is asleep). The SLAMs have truly offered me everything I had anticipated in a tube system. What's been most surprising to me is the way that these things can accurately adn musically reproduce bass. I've actually found myself really noticing subtleties in percussive instraments and performances that I had completely missed with solid-state setups... I CERTAINLY NEVER EXPECTED THIS FROM TUBES! Imagine a systems that can groove so well with Miles that guests at a cocktail party stop talking and sit fixated in front of the speakers... imagine those same guests dancing uncrontrollably to an accurate bass line and sweetest horns you've every heard coming from an old 70s Disco standard! The SLAMS can do all of this!

Strengths:
-Does just about everything well -Beautiful mids & highs -Unexpectedly fast, accurate, and powerful lows -Beautiful to look at -Outstanding Cary support -General flexibility (i.e. tube-rolling, triode-push/pull, etc)

Weaknesses:
-Cary has discontinued them!

Similar Products Used:
-Nothing has come close...