McAlister Electrostatic Amp - Page 9

Well, I am sorry to hear that. I guess I forget sometimes that all of the threads I am posting in are not taken as a whole. The fact that most of my negative comments ended up in this thread and most of my positive comments ended up in others may have something to do with how it was taken.

No offense, but shouldn't the manufacturer be trying to compensate the customer instead of spazzing out at him for merely commenting on iffy business practices?



If I were in Philo's shoes, with delay after delay I'd be fuming -- McAlister should be glad that Philo is so patient. The same thing happened to me with Mikhail, but he was extremely apologetic and threw in some free stuff to keep me as happy as I could be.

Well, in Peters defense, he did not spaz on me.

I have no complaints with the choices that Peter has made and I appreciate all his hard work on my amp. This is no off the shelf design, and delays are inevitable. I guess I was just blowing off a little steam before as I get all worked up about getting the amp... and then it is delayed. Once this happens a few times I am wound pretty tight.

As for compensation... Peter is already giving me an amazing deal on this amp. Compensation is not needed, nor even warranted in this case.

Thanks for having my back akwok, but I really just want to forget about it at this point. I'm not mad at Peter and any anger I have towards the 'perp', as swt61 put it, should be gone in a day or so.

On a more upbeat note, let me just say that if I were ever to hear Jay's new amp and find myself coveting it, I'd have no reservations whatsoever about ordering one from Peter. I'd know that I'd get my amp, I'd know how awesome it would be, and I'd know a very knowledgable guy was building it. What I would have learned from Jay's posts is to get a good fill-in amp in the meantime, and know that it'll take as long as it takes.

philodox - Both you and I have complemented Peter and his electrostatic headphone amp. in numerous postings, in numerous threads. Peter is a wonderful and honest person to deal with, and he's amazingly knowledgeable. His philosophy is to produce a terrific product, at a very reasonable price. My electrostat headphone amp. is an outstanding performer for its price, which I think was about $800. Since I wanted to let others know what a bargain it is, I brought it to several meets, including the recent National Meet in New York. Everyone who heard this amp., and many did, was extremely complementary about its performance. In a head-to-head comparison between my amp. and an HEV90, my McAlister amp.'s performance was about 85% that of the HEV90. I know that Peter read many of the conclusions that you and I (and others) posted regarding his electrostat amp., and he thereby understood what headfi members thought of his product. I think that the few negative comments that he may have read in this thread were important for him to see. The goal should be for Peter to try to provide fine service to headfi members, and hopefully his seeing some negative, though honest, comments about shortcomings will improve the service that we obtain from him. I'm really really eager to hear his new amp., and I hope that it meets or exceeds the performance of the HEV90 with my HE90. I look forward to your valuable comments (both positive and negative) regarding Peter's latest amp. And, I hope that Peter also reads them, and that he and we benefit thereby.

Better late than never. Here's a pic of my stax setup. McAlister EA-5 plugged to stax sigma and 404 (on headphone stand). That stand is a cookie tin, pretty classy eh?

Sorry the pic is blurry. Shot this manual with a Nikon FM2, low light, no flash, and the amp was going deep.

^ I sure have seen better looking amplifiers (Aristaeus anyone.. ).
Would be great to hear what you think of its sound quality, through the SR-404's.

It's not pretty that's for sure but how is it driving the Sigmas. There have been reports of clipping with some of the EA amps and the Sigmas are among the hardest 'stats to drive.

Is the EA-5 Peter McAlister's latest design for a stat amp? I thought that his designation for the new amp was EA-6. Is the EA-5 the same as the EA-6?

EA-5 is just about the same as EA-1 in a new chasis. I asked him to make it tall instead of wide, so he made amp and power supply separate. And i've never heard my sigmas clip. Very smooth from bottom to levels as high as i can bear.
And sorry, i don't got the words to describe what they sound like, i'm not very good at that. The only thing i can compare them to is the SRM-300. EA-5 sounds very poignant, first time i moved from the SRM-300 to the EA-5, it gave me goosebumps. The 404 are more pleasant to listen to now, not as agressive in the highs though it still does from time to time. Soundstage is a bit deeper than SRM-300, but about as wide, the instruments don't necessarily sit farther appart but sound more focussed so you can pick them out easier among the surrounding. It's quite detailed.
I prefer the 404 to the sigmas. I don't know if the sigmas sound generally dark or if the EA-5 is making them sound dark though, but it's distant. They work for casual listening or just relaxing but if i want to be wowed, i'd listen to the 404. I find that the placement of the drivers don't give a frontal directionality like they would suggest. On some rare tracks yes but more often they sound wide and perhaps even a bit from the back which is bizare, and it doesn't place the source of the sound anywhere in space precisely, just a general direction.