LOL! Nothing little about the SLP 05.
Source: SLP 05 owner.
Showing 3 responses by immatthewj
@russ69 from the pictures of the ’98 I’ve seen, I hear you. That line of pre certainly evolved since the SLP 90 & ’94, didn’t it. I still own the SLP 90 that I upgraded from with the 05, & the SLP 90 truly is a "sweet LITTLE preamp" (its power supply must be a quarter of the size of the ’05’s power supply, and the chassis of the preamp section is way smaller by comparison). But speaking of a "warm preamp", I always thought of my SLP 90 as that. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was just the set up it was in, or mabe it was the Mullard 12au7s. I felt it was a huge sonic upgrade from the B&K HT preamp I had in front of my (at the time of upgrade) ARC VTM 120s. It went from being in front of the ARCs to being in front of a Cary V12 (which is still there) & I still thought it was a warm sounding set up. I honestly do love the SLP05, but I don’t feel the same warmth. And again, that could be the tubes, except for 3 & 6 (the balanced ins), the other 4 are still the stock EHs.
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@russ69 I lose track of time, but it seems like about a year and a half or so ago I saw Upscale Audio was selling a SLP98 with the upgrade. Was that the one you bought? I was looking at that one with interest, especially because I think it had a phono stage(?), & I've kind of had vynyl on my bucket list (I don't think I am going to achieve that one, however) but I did note it didn't have balanced ins & outs & since I paid what I considered (at the time) a bundle for my balanced Kimber Silver Streaks, I guess that may have been my excuse not to buy something I couldn't afford. I actually got my SLP05 from Cary's preowned page. I justified also getting The Ultimate Upgrade because then I got free shipping. That kind of logic is part of why I will not be a wealthy man when I die. Although I said that I do not feel the same warmth from my '05 as I do from my '90, I did not mean that was necessarily a bad thing. I won't call anything "natural" sounding anymore, because I don't know what "natural" is supposed to sound like. I guess, ideally, maybe I would like to hear what they hear inside the recording studio? While I enjoyed what I felt was a "warm" sound from my 12au7 SLP90, what I get from my 6sn7 SLP90 is great resolution & detail (which I suppose is what "imaging" is) and a larger sound stage (within my small listening room). Not that the SLP90 doesn't reproduce detail & imaging, just not nearly as well & to the extent that my '05 does. I suspect that is something that your 6SN7 SLP98 does as well. I lack the Golden Ear & the vocabulary to write about this subject, but if anything, I would describe the sound I have with the SLP05 now in the system as being rather "liquid." Which at one time I think I might have also said about my SLP90, just a warmer "liquid" and not as much of it. |