Counterpoint SA-5000 v. CAT SL-1

We will agree to disagree as usual! That's what makes this hobby fun. My 5000 was a pristine "virgin" stock with Wondercaps and WIMAs. But never have I heard a warm sounding thousand series Counterpoint. 3, 3.1, 5 or 5.1 may be. In any case, oil caps will make anything sound warmer. Good luck in your searches.

I have to agree with some of the above posted opinions that CAT is far ahead of 5000. Counterpoint "musical, sweet, romantic"? May be earlier all-tube units but not this hybrid. My hearing is possibly skewed, and I'm too sensitive to upper mid/lower treble area, so my personal taste dictates something warm and dark like VTL Ultimate, BAT VK-3i or, my personal fave (of which I have two) MFA Luminescence. It is difficult to produce something resolving and transparent and not bright at the same time. I had an early CAT at some point and thought it was nice. Later CATS sounded to me very bright. Again, that's my hearing, and I thought the same of Joule, and a hord of others. But SA 5000 makes all of those and most solid states (definitely my Metaxas) sound positively mild and warm in comparison. Mr. Elliot has produced a unit with a lot of unnecessary stuff in signal path, which he removes now in his "updates". It is very pretty though with all those tiny green and red LEDs lighting up like Christmas tree. I agree that it will sound better with all that stuff out of the way, but the prices he commands... You can buy a used CAT AND keep 5000 for the price of update. Again, CAT is not to my taste, but it is properly engineered and sounds correct, unlike 5000 which has severe hardness and nastiness in upper mid/lower treble. And phono - you can not be serious: CAT has all-tube phono, arguably one of the best in the business, but stock 5000 uses FETs for MC input! Mr. Elliot in his update removes all FETs nad other buffers, and puts a pair of Jensen transformers to handle MC. Jensen trannies are not the best but whatever. Add to this legendary unreliabilty and you got the picture. I bought 5000 just to try it out and am very happy now that I got rid of it (thankfully without blowing up).