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Reliability of Cary Audio Products

I'm considering adding a second (all tube) system for my home office. Amongst the integrated amps that are being considered is the Cary SLI 80. A friend, who is also a long term retailer of audio products, suggested that Cary has a poor reliability record. He hasn't sold Cary for a long while, and from what I've read on Audiogon, he may be out of touch with Cary products. Comments from Cary owners would be appreciated.

John
johnrob
ttrhp
107 posts
 
i own a few cary amps and pre-amp..never have any problem.
artmaltman
769 posts
 
I've owned two Cary cd players and the Cary SLI-80 for some time now. I have not had reliability problems, and my research on the net prior to making the purchases did not reveal a pattern of reliability problems.
Art
sdatch
204 posts
 
I had an issue with a bad relay in a SLP-88. However, Cary's turnaround time on fixing the issue was less than 2 weeks, including me shipping it there, and them shipping it back to me. That's pretty good service IMO.
matrix
305 posts
 
I have owned the amps, and would say the preamps should be pretty reliable as with any tube company mostly hard wired passive components, however I guess CD players are of a different animal and would probably stay away from those.. but the amps I had the only thing ever to go wrong is they burnt out the LED Resistor for some reason and they aknowledge this problem in a lot of their units, but it had nothing to do with sound at all.
pehare's avatar
pehare
639 posts
 
I've owned 2 Cary CD players & never had a problem with either of them over a 5 year period. Also owned a Cary tube preamp in the past & currently a SLI-80 w/nary a problem w/either unit. I would not buy a component that was tough to access service-no matter how good it is. That's certainly not the case w/Cary if you ever need them.
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