Mcalister ML33 preamp

ajcllc

I am new to the forum and am interested in a Mcalister ML33 if anyone has one that they would like to sell. Please let me know. Thanks.

HB27

Hey Andy,
Welcome to the forum. You are NOT getting any of my McALister stuff. Once I got all the bugs out it's great gear. Good luck. I'll bet there's a couple of pieces still floating around here.
Harry

SCompRacer

Hello Andy, welcome to Club Polk. It was good to hear that Greg is still enjoying the ML33 he got from me. I was very fortunate with the McAlister gear I owned, while others here had problems.

I sent a PM to a forum member that may still have some McAlister gear. I am not sure if it is the ML33.

Harry, I am guessing you obtained your McAlister gear from Noel?

fredv

Welcome, Andy.
I bought a ML22 and a PP-150 from a wonderful member here. After a few issues were corrected, both gears have been up and singing. Are you looking for the ML33 because it has the phono stage? The ML22 is essentially a ML33 without the MM phono stage. If you are interested in the ML22, you can send me a PM via the forum.
Harry, what kind of bugs are in your McAlister? I hope they are minor stuffs.

Face

fredv wrote: »

Welcome, Andy.
I bought a ML22 and a PP-150 from a wonderful member here. After a few issues were corrected, both gears have been up and singing. Are you looking for the ML33 because it has the phono stage? The ML22 is essentially a ML33 without the MM phono stage. If you are interested in the ML22, you can send me a PM via the forum.
Harry, what kind of bugs are in your McAlister? I hope they are minor stuffs.

He can't PM you till he has at least 10 posts.

ajcllc

Fredv,

You have an email.

Andy

HB27

fredv wrote: »

Welcome, Andy.
I bought a ML22 and a PP-150 from a wonderful member here. After a few issues were corrected, both gears have been up and singing. Are you looking for the ML33 because it has the phono stage? The ML22 is essentially a ML33 without the MM phono stage. If you are interested in the ML22, you can send me a PM via the forum.
Harry, what kind of bugs are in your McAlister? I hope they are minor stuffs.

Were, past tense. Just minor stuff. I've had a few McAlister pieces over the last couple of years. My 33 had a couple of screws missing and the chassis was loose since new. One bad socket(2 pins fell out) and a loose ground on the ground bar. All simple stuff and easy to take care of but a P.I.A. I've got a newer custom and it had the taiwan Alps controls and both went bad and had another loose connection on socket 4 6CG7 and it was eating the # 4 tube about every 3 hours. Finally ran it down. I will admit it is the best sounding preamp I've ever owned once I got all the bugs out and tubes rolled. Great phono stage also. Actually beat my ML-33 by a ton.
I even had custom faceplates made, changed knobs, put in a Master volume control along with the left and right channel controls, and got rid of the brightass blue light on the face. It was like a flashlight in the dark.

HB27

Just a bit of FYI, Andy aka ajcllc is my mostest favorite preachers.
I've known him a couple of years and a great guy and avid audio idiot like the rest of us. He heard one of my PP-150 amps and one of Norms (r.i.p.) old ML-33s and has had the bug since. If you've got a nice one he will give it a great home.
Harry

fredv

Hi Harry,

Everything that you mentioned sounded familiar :-)

Your ML-33 is all in one chassis. Was it having a separate power supply chassis at some point? You ML-33 is in a much better than my ML-22 cosmetically. Mine was suffered from inadequate protection when it was shipped to the first owner. The ML-22 chassis is
also significantly smaller than yours.

I got the email from Andy and replied him. The ML22 chassis is too small to add a phono stage. I recommended him to consider external/outboard phono stage to be used with his current preamp.

HB27

fredv wrote: »

Hi Harry,

Everything that you mentioned sounded familiar :-)

Your ML-33 is all in one chassis. Was it having a separate power supply chassis at some point? You ML-33 is in a much better than my ML-22 cosmetically. Mine was suffered from inadequate protection when it was shipped to the first owner. The ML-22 chassis is
also significantly smaller than yours.

I got the email from Andy and replied him. The ML22 chassis is too small to add a phono stage. I recommended him to consider external/outboard phono stage to be used with his current preamp.

That's the pic of the latest one I bought from Peter. It's the special order he and I worked on that he built. It's a special order 12/15 kinda. Neither exact but close.
I bought/traded with Noel for the first couple I got but after I got all the bugs worked out and learned a lot about his designs and methods I can pretty much work on anything he's made to date. Believe me I spent a lot of time on some of them.
On a side note, Peter is a great guy and is very accomodating on ALL his gear. I had him upgrade my PP-150 and he totally rebuilt/refreshed it at no charge to me other than shipping. I learned his idea of good cosmetics and mine are totally different and I just accept them for what they are and refinish them myself and add a few new cosmetics to spice them up. And contrary to what he says, rolling tubes in them is a MUST DO except in the voltage tubes. You can make them suckas really sing. My custom is as good as it gets as far as preamps go. I haven't looked inside the phono section but I've never had better and I've spent some serious money on phono pre's. You just have to accept Peter's product as-is and be ready to fine tune them when you get them. Heck, as I see it, it's half the fun of owning good gear anyway.

HB27

SCompRacer wrote: »

Hello Andy, welcome to Club Polk. It was good to hear that Greg is still enjoying the ML33 he got from me. I was very fortunate with the McAlister gear I owned, while others here had problems.

I sent a PM to a forum member that may still have some McAlister gear. I am not sure if it is the ML33.

Harry, I am guessing you obtained your McAlister gear from Noel?

Rich? I'm guessing some of it was yours? I got a couple of pieces from him that were damaged in shipping and needed a bit of TLC. Later I found out that's pretty normal stuff. After I got it all running right it is really quality gear. I had Peter build me a few pieces and bought some off Ebay and Agon. Every now and then you'll find one that's special and a keeper. They just seem to "have what it takes" and will make a fan out of you.
Harry

SCompRacer

Hello Harry, now I know where the gear ended up. Also, please accept my belated welcome to Club Polk. (I'm only 10 months late....LOL)

Poor packing was one thing that just seemed to go on and on, affecting many of his customers. Broken binding posts were common on the amps. Norm, Victor (CP member halo) had this happen. I replaced the posts rather than risk another round trip to and from Canada. CP member madmax also had many problems with his amp and pre. There are posts 'aboot':D the packing here, at Audiogon, Audio Circle, etc…

Inductance hum from the power supply transformer was a common problem with the early design PP150 amp. I had solved that by using Neoprene isolation mounts between the transformer and case. The shear rating was more than sufficient for the weight of the transformer to survive a drop from 5 feet and cost $1.04 each, purchased in low quantities. I shared that with Peter and had posted the info in response to a thread about the PP150 hum over at Audiogon.

Peter’s version was rubber washers between the transformer and case. IIRC the transformer broke loose in the power supply and tore up the wiring on the way to Noel. In retrospect, I should have opened up the PS and checked before shipping instead of trusting the problem was solved. Norm had purchased a nice case for the PS and it was to be shipped back to us for repair, but it was sold to you instead.

I was fortunate in that my PP150 and ML-33 did not suffer damage in shipping. He had installed the wrong binding posts and I had to swap them out. My first ML-33 had to be returned as the power supply was undersized for both the pre and phono. It would overheat and smelled awful, with the wax melting out of it. It was great sounding for the low selling price we paid back then, but we all moved on to other gear.

Your custom pre amp looks very nice, much better than the home made looking gear normally shipped from him.

HB27

SCompRacer wrote: »

Hello Harry, now I know where the gear ended up. Also, please accept my belated welcome to Club Polk. (I'm only 10 months late....LOL)

Poor packing was one thing that just seemed to go on and on, affecting many of his customers. Broken binding posts were common on the amps. Norm, Victor (CP member halo) had this happen. I replaced the posts rather than risk another round trip to and from Canada. CP member madmax also had many problems with his amp and pre. There are posts 'aboot':D the packing here, at Audiogon, Audio Circle, etc…

Inductance hum from the power supply transformer was a common problem with the early design PP150 amp. I had solved that by using Neoprene isolation mounts between the transformer and case. The shear rating was more than sufficient for the weight of the transformer to survive a drop from 5 feet and cost $1.04 each, purchased in low quantities. I shared that with Peter and had posted the info in response to a thread about the PP150 hum over at Audiogon.

Peter’s version was rubber washers between the transformer and case. IIRC the transformer broke loose in the power supply and tore up the wiring on the way to Noel. In retrospect, I should have opened up the PS and checked before shipping instead of trusting the problem was solved. Norm had purchased a nice case for the PS and it was to be shipped back to us for repair, but it was sold to you instead.

I was fortunate in that my PP150 and ML-33 did not suffer damage in shipping. He had installed the wrong binding posts and I had to swap them out. My first ML-33 had to be returned as the power supply was undersized for both the pre and phono. It would overheat and smelled awful, with the wax melting out of it. It was great sounding for the low selling price we paid back then, but we all moved on to other gear.

Your custom pre amp looks very nice, much better than the home made looking gear normally shipped from him.

Thanks for the belated welcome. I was on the forum for a while before but I never posted and I lost/forgot my user ID and couldn't get it as fast as I wanted so I just re-registered. Not many posts anyway so it didn't matter to me.
I worked on the power supply but it still had "the hum" and I sent it back to Peter for upgrade. It came back quiet but ugly. The PP-150 quit a couple of weeks later and I ended up sending it back to him for upgrade and restore. Fedex stuck me in the arse for $258 dollars for extra fees shipping both pieces but other than that all went well AFTER I built shipping cartons for them out of extremely heavy foam and boxes. Peter went through it for free and upgraded quite a few things in it. It looked much more professional underneath when I got it back. I did the cosmetics re-do and it actually came out very good looking. I had just got my MC75s back from Terry DeWick and sold Andy's buddy Gregg the PP-150 as I didn't need that many 75wpc amps. His system came out nice with that 33 and 150. Once you get all the bugs out of Peter's gear it's really excellent stuff and sounds great.
Harry

SCompRacer

I was told Customs and duty fees could be random using FedEx. I had Peter ship both my amp and pre on my FedEx account and wasn’t dinged for custom fees. However, when I sent the ML-33 back to him for repair via FedEx, I clearly marked the box and customs paperwork “Warranty Return, Canadian Manufacture.” Canada Customs still nailed me $175. It took me near a year to get that money back, with FedEx helping. It was like a gauntlet, they want you to give up and forget about it. We never had any customs charge using Canada Post/USPS, but tracking was poor once it crossed the border.

Peter is a great guy though, with some wonderful circuit designs using out of the ordinary, usually inexpensive tubes. I thoroughly enjoyed our talks, and he gave me some great tips for a better backhand in tennis.

IIRC, I made a nice shipping package for the ML-33 that went to Gregg. Sounds like he won't be letting it go though.

fredv

Hee hee, I am the lucky guy who inherit madmax's McAlister gears.
So far, I am able to service both the pre and the amp myself, no frieght to up North yet, knock on wood :-) Regarding to tube rolling, I have to agree to Peter on the amp side as the tubes (6LB6) that came with my amp were all made by either GE or Sylvania. There is no point to roll the same tubes over and over again :-) All in all, very good sounding gears. Thank you, Rich, for introducing the McAlister to us !!

fredv

Browsed through McAlister Audio website, I believe the PL-15 in the current product list is the same as Harry's ML-33, and the PL-10B is loosely equivalent to my ML-20. Comparing to the ML-20, I see a welcome improvement - a filter choke and oil filled cap. It says using regulated DC filament supply, is it really regulated? Not in my ML-20, it was DC with under sized cap, not good. Harry, does your 33 have a regulated DC filament supply? His product description still has a lot of gimmicks that are somewhat geared to marketing tone. The circuit topology is a classic mu-follower. There is nothing special .... Also, he parallels 2 sections to reduce the output impedance, but then he only bias each section at 5ma. This tube needs at least 8-10ma. I hope the new model will have the bias corrected. I'll take optimal bias over subpar parellel sections any time any day. Another change that I hope Peter has implemented in the new model is to bias the heater supply up. Before I made that change, my ML-20 hum quite badly!! My gut feeling is that whoever purchase from Peter needs to be prepared to do some tinkering .....

HB27

SCompRacer wrote: »

I was told Customs and duty fees could be random using FedEx. I had Peter ship both my amp and pre on my FedEx account and wasn’t dinged for custom fees. However, when I sent the ML-33 back to him for repair via FedEx, I clearly marked the box and customs paperwork “Warranty Return, Canadian Manufacture.” Canada Customs still nailed me $175. It took me near a year to get that money back, with FedEx helping. It was like a gauntlet, they want you to give up and forget about it. We never had any customs charge using Canada Post/USPS, but tracking was poor once it crossed the border.

Peter is a great guy though, with some wonderful circuit designs using out of the ordinary, usually inexpensive tubes. I thoroughly enjoyed our talks, and he gave me some great tips for a better backhand in tennis.

IIRC, I made a nice shipping package for the ML-33 that went to Gregg. Sounds like he won't be letting it go though.

I had my boxes marked the same way as warranty returns also.
It wasn't customs fees Fedex nailed me with. It was a "Delivery Surcharge" and I couldn't get it back. Since then I use USPS only for international. My local shipping store is an independent and a UPS advocate for Canada. Cost is cheaper to ship but there are taxes for the recipient using UPS not levied by USPS. There's a free trade agreement and there aren't supposed to be any at all.
Tracking? What a Joke! It shows received at the border and nothing until AFTER delivery.
I think it's important to let anyone know this IF they need to ship to McAlister for any reason. Only use USPS unless you want to pay extra fees for "Handling or Customs". Save yourself some bucks. Overpack for safe delivery and use USPS insured to the "max".
Harry

HB27

fredv wrote: »

Browsed through McAlister Audio website, I believe the PL-15 in the current product list is the same as Harry's ML-33, and the PL-10B is loosely equivalent to my ML-20. Comparing to the ML-20, I see a welcome improvement - a filter choke and oil filled cap. It says using regulated DC filament supply, is it really regulated? Not in my ML-20, it was DC with under sized cap, not good. Harry, does your 33 have a regulated DC filament supply? His product description still has a lot of gimmicks that are somewhat geared to marketing tone. The circuit topology is a classic mu-follower. There is nothing special .... Also, he parallels 2 sections to reduce the output impedance, but then he only bias each section at 5ma. This tube needs at least 8-10ma. I hope the new model will have the bias corrected. I'll take optimal bias over subpar parellel sections any time any day. Another change that I hope Peter has implemented in the new model is to bias the heater supply up. Before I made that change, my ML-20 hum quite badly!! My gut feeling is that whoever purchase from Peter needs to be prepared to do some tinkering .....

My ML-33 is the older style with seperate power supply and 8' umbillical. I've had ZERO problems with it except for a couple of screws and cosmetic issues I mentioned before. This is minor stuff I could live with especially for the price vs quality. For the money it's hard to beat.
The one I took the picture of is one of the customs he made me this year with some of the affore mentioned changes and it's also my best sounding pre.
The new stuff I've got from him have the upgraded power supply and seem very stable. I've seen a lot of Peter's gear and I'm not real sure there are design constants per se and definitely are built one at a time. To be fair the newer models have a lot of improvements in quality control and cosmetics. There is also a welded chassis and some production stamping instead of the old "hole saw" and random drill marks.
IF you notice there is also a price increase reflected in this. I think with the improved QC, cosmetics, and actual custom made shipping boxes he uses that the price increase is justified and more than fair. He has evolved from a "garage builder" to a very qualified Designer and manufacturer of higher end audio gear. Like any small company he's learning his customer expectations as he goes.
There is a lot to be said for buying McAlister gear. The sound is excellent. You can get your "Dream" gear personalized to your wants/needs, and be a part of the building process and actually get an education from Peter all the while making a new friend.
If planning on buying new from Peter, Don't expect 2 weeks delivery. It takes that long for it to clear customs. Plan on closer to a month to 6 weeks before you see it. He's busy. Be patient. It's worth the wait.
Harry

george daniel

Guy's,,I just want to say "thanks" for this thread,it's been very informative,and I've spent the last hour or so looking at reviews.I had been looking at some other tube gear in the 70 watt+/- range,and McAlister has certainly gotten my attention, in a big way.
Thanks --george

ajcllc

I might be interested in it if George is not. Thanks, Andy

fredv

HB27 wrote: »

The one I took the picture of is one of the customs he made me this year with some of the affore mentioned changes and it's also my best sounding pre.

Sorry, I thought that's a customized ML-33 :-) The current PL-15 looks identical to it. Does it have a regulated filament supply? Also, a little curiosity, is the "potted" can the power transformer? If you ever open the bottom cover again, I will love to see a picture of the inside - just to compare what kind of change done in 2 years.

george daniel

anonymouse wrote: »

George - I have a PP150 - the same unit that Rich and Norm had. It is not in my rig right now. If you want it, PM me.

Thank you sir.. pm'd

SCompRacer

Thank you, Rich, for introducing the McAlister to us !!

I never imagined I would ever see this posted....:p:D You are most welcome Fred.;)

Seriously, my time with Peter contained both enjoyment and extreme frustration. His hand wound, dipped between layers interleaved output trannies really made that amp something special. It was made to drive ESL's, as that was Peter's speaker of choice. Matter of fact, we were discussing my speaker likes and dislikes, and he told me I was headed for electrostats. Aboot a year later, I had some.

IF you notice there is also a price increase reflected in this.

Norm, myself and others tried to get Peter to understand that he needed to address those recurring issues, even though it meant higher prices. It is good to see they are finally addressed.

HB27

Andy, have you found a ML-33 yet? I know you are a big TT listener and vinyl fan.
Harry

ajcllc

None yet, Harry. I love the sound of the ML-33 as well as its phono stage and am still looking for one. Thanks.

SCompRacer

Mine had a 'phowo' stage...:p:D That made it unique.;)

fredv

Rich,
Your picture stimulate this question: are all McAlister's have the tube type crafted in the chassis next to the socket?

Thanks!!

SCompRacer

Fred, my early design PP150 amp did not. (The external PS is not pictured). The external PS for my ML-33 had a brass plate on it that was engraved with the tube numbers. The top of the pre was just painted Black. The bias pots were located inside on the early amp, and it was a paid option to make them external. The later design had the bias externally adjustable. Once, I wasn't paying close attention when biasing my early amp and my pinky strayed to a high voltage wire....yee ha, that one reached in and touched my heart.

The new design PP150 top was also just painted Black, although Peter would build to suit. The PS was smaller on the new PP150 amp design. The new design was also much heavier as he used larger iron in the output trannies. This was Victor's, IIRC.

george daniel

Rich,,any significant difference in sound between the earlier vs latter versions? Most appears to be cosmetic from what I can see in the photo's,,aside from the output trannies.

SCompRacer

George, it was mostly cosmetic. I cannot recall any differences in the sonics or performance of the early and later design amps.

The PS was much quieter on the new design. The early design amp PS had a noticable inductance hum. The PS cases were really thin so that didn't help. I used some isolation mounts to significantly reduce it. The new design PS case was smaller as he had moved some of the smaller transformers into the amp chassis.

fredv

Rich,

Thanks for the picture. When I first visited his site, I only found the PL-10 and ML-33 from the preamp arena. I never saw ML-20 in Peter's product line. The ML-20 that I inherited from Chuck definitely didn't have the same build quality of ML33. It looked more like a prototype. Some of parts were incorrect. I am not complaining as Chuck struck a great deal with me :-) The fun is that I brought it back to life, and I have great plan to enhance it to out perform any other McAlister preamp (no kidding here), but that will only happen if Andy decides not to buy the ML-20 from me. I disclosed what I did and my thinking about it to him in all polkie honesty - I don't feel this ML20 is equal to the ML33 line stage yet.

George,

FWIW, I am quoting what Rich told me in the past, not exactly word by word, Peter used whatever parts that he had in his disposal at the time he built the amp. From what I have read, all the PP-150 had EL-509/PL-509 output tubes. Mine has the 6LB6. So, there can be some small difference in sound signature there, but since it is very likely that no PP-150 are alike :-) and no one compared back to back, it will be hard to say if there is any difference for sure. Based on my experience with horizontal sweep tubes, their sound signature are not as different as the typical audio output tubes such as KT88, EL34, 6L6GC, 6550 etc. My best guess is that, if the customized OT are consistent, I will guess the SQ should be close.