Reliability of Cary Audio Products

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.

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.

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.

i own a pair of cary slm-200 monos. they were built almost 10 years ago and they are still running fine. i'll probably ship them back to cary next year to have a tech upgrade to jensen caps and give a complete check up. only problem i've ever had was blown fuses due to bad tubes which isn't the cary's fault anyways. i bought my amps used from upscale audio and dennis had has always been cordial and honest with me when i've needed advice even though he knows i purchased the amps used.

I think whatever feedback you get here will be close to worthless. The satisfied owners who read this and have had no problems will defend their choices and tell you they are very reliable. Those who had problems and are disgruntled will say they aren't. In any case, the number of owners who answer will be such a small portion of Cary's install base that it will be statically insignificant therefore the results of your poll will be meaningless.

Dealers would have a better idea, but current dealers would never tell you they are unreliable even if they are, and former dealers are more likely to tell you that they are unreliable even if they aren't.

Ask Cary; they know. See what they have to say :>)