OK after a couple glitches with one of my amps not powering up & one preamp tube suffering the travel; I finally got my system running properly 2 days ago. It is still breaking in but I like what I am hearing.
Let me back up a little before I get into the nuts and bolts. I have looked at other upgrades for this preamp but my concern is the voicing. In my opinion Cary has a house sound whether it is their tube or solid state gear. Going to a third party might change the Cary sound that I like so much that I never did try a third party. When Cary announced the upgrade, I was delighted. It is one thing to plug in parts and maybe measure performance but you also have to listen to what you did. I trust Cary to do this and they delivered.
The upgraded unit has deeper and more accurate bass. The width and depth of the soundstage increased. On the top end properly recorded cymbals sound exactly as they should with no smearing. Vocals are spot on. Every recording I listened to was better.
My preamp was about 10 years old and the technician replaced a bad resister. Also the upgrade includes new capacitors. Capacitors have a life span. What I am driving at is if your preamp has some years on it ,you are going to have it completely checked out as part of the upgrade. The way I look at , my preamp sounds better and it should be good for another 10 years.
Some of you probably want me to quantify the improvement but as I said it is still breaking in. I am happy with what I am hearing and I think for me it was definitely worth the investment. You may disagree especially when companies like PS Audio are giving away wonderful software upgrades for their equipment.
Shredder , the 6f8g tubes I settled on were the Kenrads. For those of you not familiar with these tubes, they were the precursors to the 6sn7 tubes. I hope this write-up proves useful to you . Larry W