Cary SI-300.2d Integrated

jdjohn

Well, I had an itchy trigger finger and couldn't pass up a great deal on one of these. Should be here Monday.

Class A/B, 300WPC into 8 ohms, 450WPC into 4 ohms, incorporated DAC
Should be a beast...and good space heater

xsmi

Looks fantastic! Congrats!!

BlueBirdMusic

It looks GREAT! I love it, and I like the SILVER the best.

Your TEQUILA will probably taste better because of it.

Mike Reeter

Congrats on what looks like a great piece! She looks good dressed in Black as well

tonyb

Sexy beast....not you, the Cary. Can't wait to hear your impressions.

verb

Congrats Jody!

smglbrth

Congrats, nice piece of gear!

Milito

Congrats!

jdjohn

Thanks guys! It really was kind of an impulse buy. I need more gear like I need [fill in the blank]. I'll share more after I get my ears on it

I do kinda wish it had a headphone jack, though...

tonyb

jdjohn wrote: »

Thanks guys! It really was kind of an impulse buy. I need more gear like I need [fill in the blank]. I'll share more after I get my ears on it

I do kinda wish it had a headphone jack, though...

That's a deal breaker.....Karma that puppy out pronto, in with 69.

jdjohn

This eagle is in the nest. It truly was NIB.



Here in quarantine, driving a pair of vintage Infinity Column II:

So far, the word that comes to mind is 'control'. These old Infinity speakers can be boomy with two woofers - one firing downward - but this Cary integrated has them tamed quite well. Not to mention...wait, I am mentioning it...I'm playing Keane's Under the Iron Sea, and I find that Keane's music can be a little bassy. So to tame that music on these speakers is kind of impressive.

Clipdat

Nice VU meters.

vcwatkins

Congrats. Beautiful.

tonyb

Give us a tad bit more insight to the sound, comparisons ?

Lucky for you I don't have your address, I might steal that beauty. I'd have to bring the wife though to carry it, since I can't pick up anything heavy for awhile.

erniejade

Congrats! That looks like its an amazing unit.
Any issue with having the speaker hookup on top instead of the bottom of the unit?

jdjohn

All in due time @tonyb Letting it burn in a little bit before moving over to Mezzo Utopias for comparison to other amps. I barely got the meter needles off zero last night

@erniejade Having the speaker binding posts on the top row is different, but no issue so far...although I've only hooked-up a digital input for now. Once I use the line inputs (directly below the speaker posts), we'll see how that goes.

jdjohn

A little update here on my experience with this unit. First, the features: I have delved deeper into its digital input capabilities, and everything seems to work...very flexible. For digital coax, I first tried a Logitech Squeezebox Touch (SBT), and it works great.

Next, I tried my Nativ Vita streamer/player's USB output into the 300.2d DAC, via USB. This worked as well...once I chose the correct digital output on the Vita. I played a few locally-stored DSD files from the Vita's SSD array, and during playback, the Cary DAC showed an input of 'DoP64', so 'DSD64 over PCM', which is a Mac thing. The Owner's Manual goes into details about both PC and Mac drivers, especially for networked files.

But, it seems that the stock USB input settings for the Cary's DAC will accomodate a few different players/streamers. The Nativ Vita has an Android OS, which apparently has enough native USB capabilities to work with the Cary's DAC. For the Logitech SBT, USB output works as well, BUT I had to go to the SBT digital output settings, choose 'xCore USB Audio 2.0' output, and reboot the SBT. The xCore thing is another Mac thing. My takeaway is that the Cary's USB input can 'talk' to many various players/streamers (at least Android and Mac) without any tweaks. Setting up an NAS will likely require more specific changes in settings.

As far as line-level inputs, this Cary unit sounds wonderful...which is kinda what you'd expect. I've put my most recent vinyl analog chain through it, and it sounds great. You may have to pry my Rogue Audio Triton phono preamp from my cold dead hands, but that's another discussion.

I hope to try the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities next. I'm still accumulating audial information at this point, but I can tell you that it now has a firm grip on my Mezzo Utopias. "Who's your daddy!?!"

Clipdat

Thanks for the update, glad you're having fun with it so far.

BlueBirdMusic

Jody, I was not familiar with the Nativ Vita so I had to do some reading. I found it described very well at:
https://darko.audio/2019/06/nativs-vita-is-the-complete-high-end-streaming-package/

Love the touchscreen that it has. Were you part of the original crowdfunded project or did you acquire afterwards?

The Cary and Nativ Vita are certainly "eye-pleasing". Maybe a picture of both working.
Harry

jdjohn

Harry, I got my Vita from our very own @ZLTFUL several months ago. It can stream just about any service under the sun, but it is only a player, so requires a separate DAC. Mine has 1TB of internal SSD storage as well.

Here's a pic of them together, but I'm afraid it's not staged very well. My rack is pretty elementary...someday I'll upgrade.

verb

Sweet looking rig! Love the looks of the Vita on top! And the Cary of course down low!

VR3

Just saw this, sweet looking integrated! Should get the Utopias moving!

ZLTFUL

Looking good man! And I am very glad the Vita is working out well for you!

Mike Reeter

jdjohn, that's a nice stash of Cartridges you have! I see a Rogue Audio Triton also, what do you have for a TT?

BlueBirdMusic

jdjohn wrote: »

Harry, I got my Vita from our very own @ZLTFUL several months ago. It can stream just about any service under the sun, but it is only a player, so requires a separate DAC. Mine has 1TB of internal SSD storage as well.

Here's a pic of them together, but I'm afraid it's not staged very well. My rack is pretty elementary...someday I'll upgrade.

EVERYTHING looks great!!!

jdjohn

Mike Reeter wrote: »

jdjohn, that's a nice stash of Cartridges you have! I see a Rogue Audio Triton also, what do you have for a TT?

Thanks, Mike! Yeah...I went pretty deep down the cartridge rabbit hole, so have accumulated quite a few I do love my Triton, for sure. At some point, I may move up the Rogue line a little further, but I'm happy for now.

I have [cough] 20 turntables at the moment, so a bit of a hoarding problem there Most of them are of the vintage variety, with my most 'modern' one being a Clearaudio Concept w/ MC. In that pic above, if I were to zoom out, you would see a little Technics SL-J2 linear tracker that I've been re-habbing out of my dad's collection. No one should underestimate those little turntables!

jdjohn

ZLTFUL wrote: »

Looking good man! And I am very glad the Vita is working out well for you!

Thanks, Ryan! Interesting thing: while reading this Cary's documentation regarding the USB connection, it mentioned needing Windows or Mac drivers for running NAS, etc. I emailed them about the Vita, wondering if it would work, and they replied with 'probably not'. Well, it works fine as I mentioned in an earlier post...even does DSD (or DoP). The SBT works as well. I emailed the Cary guys back and let them know of my success, but so far, no reply back from them. I thought they might be more interested

jdjohn

I'm ready to share some of my thoughts regarding the sound of this unit.

At critical listening volumes (and higher), it sounds exceptional. There is a weight to the music, and as mentioned earlier, everything is under wonderful control. At adequate volume levels, there is a nice mid-range bloom that appears somewhat unexpectedly, which fills out the frequency range nicely. I'll have more to say on the volume. The soundstage is expansive (seemed to add a foot or so on each side), and imaging/separation is spot-on.

Overall, the sound is on the warmer side, which (I think) may be typical of the Cary house sound. Honestly, I'm normally tilted towards a cooler, brighter sound, but this is really nice. I like the authority of the Cary, and it still retains enough high-end detail to satisfy me. The bass is strong and tight, but don't confuse 'tight' with "weak, yet detailed". I don't use a sub-woofer with my Mezzo Utopias, but at times with the Cary, it sounded (and felt) like a sub was in use, especially with some electronic music. Impressive.

Okay, more regarding the volume. To put it quantitatively: at level 20, it sounded okay, but not quite filled-out; at 30, everything came to life, but we're no longer at low volume. Whether or not this is acceptable comes down to a user's situation. With a dedicated listening space where a higher volume is the norm, this Cary fits the bill. With more of a living/listening space, where late-night listening needs to be at a lower volume, using this unit might be frustrating, and considered underutilized.

To say it another way, I would say the volume control is not exactly linear - it is more logarithmic. Even going from 25 to 30 can be the difference between having a conversation with someone in the same room, or not. In contrast, I find the (class-D) PS Audio S300 more linear in volume response, and with a flatter frequency response all the way through the range. This Cary needs to hit at least 25 or 30 in order to fill-out properly IMO. But, once it does fill-out, only your eardrums and speaker response are the limiting factors. It has LOTS of headroom, and comes into its own at higher volumes.

This amp is very quiet. I was tempted to say it is quiet 'for class A/B', but it is just flat-out quiet, regardless. Some people may furrow their brows at that 'for A/B' comment, but again contrasting to the PSA S300 class-D, I have found class-D to be the most quiet. This Cary class-A/B is as quiet, or maybe more so Dark background, whatever you want to call it, this Cary has it.

Back to features - this integrated pretty much has it all (in terms of 2-channel)...except for a headphone jack Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB, incorporated DAC, HT by-pass, excellent remote control, and power galore Don't underestimate the power of this beast - 300WPC > 8 ohms; 450WPC > 4 ohms. It should drive just about anything. Because of this, it does need room to breathe for heat dissipation, especially on top.

Styling and build-quality are top-notch, which I think is typical for Cary products.

Appendum: I did not evaluate the TruBit oversampling feature for the DAC. Please search online for other reviews that look more closely into that feature.

P.S. The Cary folks did eventually reply to my email about successfully connecting via USB to other devices, and they were thankful for the information.

jdjohn

I had this guy out of the rack, so removed the cover, and took a few pics. With top cover:

Close-up of the tranny:

Did someone say output transistors?