Calin Enache, head engineer at District Sound Lab, sent us a fantastic review of our SLI-80 integrated amplifier. Thank you for your support and for being part of the Cary Audio Family!
“My name is Calin and I am the head engineer at District Sound Lab studio in Bethesda, MD. I am a music producer and mixer, so monitoring is by far the most important part of my studio. I have gone through about a dozen pairs of speakers, most of which were active. I finally landed on my ideal speakers, Amphion Two18s, which are passive. I tried numerous amps and found that the Cary SLI-80 really blew everything out of the water. It came as a real surprise because I never thought a tube amp could be accurate for mixing. I was planning on only trying various solid state amps until my friend Punchy from Audioism let me demo his Cary. Coming from the studio world, we often use tubes for coloration and distortion in preamps, compressors, etc. But the SLI-80 tube amp powering my Amphions gets me by far the most accurate and detailed sound I have ever heard. Most importantly, my mixes translate to the outside world like never before. But also, the SLI-80 sounds so much more musical than other amps I tried with the Amphions. It’s amazing to be able to have my monitoring sound so musical and pleasing while also being accurate and detailed AND translating perfectly. I feel like I am in audio nirvana with this setup. I also want to mention that trying different tubes was a big part of honing in the sound of this amp for me. With the stock tubes the amp still sounded great, but swapping the tubes out with NOS Mullards, RCAs and Tung Sols really took it to another level. It was expensive but worth every cent, and I can tell you that it makes a big difference. And that’s another benefit of using the SLI-80…being able to tailor the sound by using different tubes so that it perfectly matches my speakers, room and taste. This is obvious for you hifi folks but it is something we are generally not used to in the studio world. Thank you Cary for making such an awesome amp! I have been getting the best mixes of my career with it and simultaneously I have never enjoyed listening to music this much.”
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