Acaamano,
So far, we've only heard one side of the story regarding the criminal act. I think the cat should have an opportunity to defend itself.
I owned the 333 for 8 years, bought it as a demo from a dealer. During my ownership, the capacitors blew up twice, and I found out from ML that it had already blewed up once when the dealer had it. This has been discussed quite a bit on various forums. Are you sure it was the cat?
The ML tech told me over the phone that this issue was due to two parts: a design issue and also the capacitor supplier. They had since switched to a different supplier after Harmon took over. Under the new practice, there is a price cap for repairing ML products. When I sent mine in 3 or 4 years ago, it was around $1200 for the amp. But they had a shady practice by telling you that it would not cost that much, but you had to authorize it to that amount for them to start the work. They would come back afterwards and tell you that you got lucky because the cost would have been $2500 without that policy and you were lucky to walk away with only paying $1200 + shipping both ways. They did the same thing to me around the same time on my transport and charged me $1800 + shipping both ways when all I needed was a quick recalibration (per their published internal document that someone sent me afterwards, all I needed was to push a few buttons on the front panel).
I'm not sure who provided you the original quote. But if you are keen on keeping the ML 333, it might be worth calling Harmon and inquire about the cost. But maybe they've changed their policies. Per some owners ML had extended the warranty policy for an extra few years after this issue went public on discussion boards. So you might want to check to see if it is still under warranty. The amp DOES sound better with the new caps though.
And there are NO upgrades. Whoever told you that is B.S.ing. When I sent mine in, I asked whether it would be possible to upgrade it to the 333.5. But the tech told me they no longer provided the parts to do so. So the person is probably trying to cover up the fact that the caps blew up and went back to the factory for repairs. And no independent tech would touch this amp. I had asked several highly recommended repair shops across the country.
So that's another con for the ML333. If you buy another one, you never know when the caps will blow up and cost you more money to fix.
It might be a stretch financially, but I would also recommend the Pass X350.5. I ended up trading my ML333 in for one and never looked back. It can handle lower impedance well. I've heard some great successes from owners using it to drive various Apogee behemeths.
I read Davt's post above with great interest, because not long after I switched the amp, I also switched speakers to the Verity Parsifal Encore with the latest version of the tweeters. Previously I had owned the Thiel 3.6 for like 10 years, and before that Thiel 2.2 for about the same amount of time. I've not heard the X250.5 myself. But I have read equal amount of opinions from (supposedly) people that have compared the X250.5 and the X350.5 that one is better than the other.
FrankC
So far, we've only heard one side of the story regarding the criminal act. I think the cat should have an opportunity to defend itself.
I owned the 333 for 8 years, bought it as a demo from a dealer. During my ownership, the capacitors blew up twice, and I found out from ML that it had already blewed up once when the dealer had it. This has been discussed quite a bit on various forums. Are you sure it was the cat?
The ML tech told me over the phone that this issue was due to two parts: a design issue and also the capacitor supplier. They had since switched to a different supplier after Harmon took over. Under the new practice, there is a price cap for repairing ML products. When I sent mine in 3 or 4 years ago, it was around $1200 for the amp. But they had a shady practice by telling you that it would not cost that much, but you had to authorize it to that amount for them to start the work. They would come back afterwards and tell you that you got lucky because the cost would have been $2500 without that policy and you were lucky to walk away with only paying $1200 + shipping both ways. They did the same thing to me around the same time on my transport and charged me $1800 + shipping both ways when all I needed was a quick recalibration (per their published internal document that someone sent me afterwards, all I needed was to push a few buttons on the front panel).
I'm not sure who provided you the original quote. But if you are keen on keeping the ML 333, it might be worth calling Harmon and inquire about the cost. But maybe they've changed their policies. Per some owners ML had extended the warranty policy for an extra few years after this issue went public on discussion boards. So you might want to check to see if it is still under warranty. The amp DOES sound better with the new caps though.
And there are NO upgrades. Whoever told you that is B.S.ing. When I sent mine in, I asked whether it would be possible to upgrade it to the 333.5. But the tech told me they no longer provided the parts to do so. So the person is probably trying to cover up the fact that the caps blew up and went back to the factory for repairs. And no independent tech would touch this amp. I had asked several highly recommended repair shops across the country.
So that's another con for the ML333. If you buy another one, you never know when the caps will blow up and cost you more money to fix.
It might be a stretch financially, but I would also recommend the Pass X350.5. I ended up trading my ML333 in for one and never looked back. It can handle lower impedance well. I've heard some great successes from owners using it to drive various Apogee behemeths.
I read Davt's post above with great interest, because not long after I switched the amp, I also switched speakers to the Verity Parsifal Encore with the latest version of the tweeters. Previously I had owned the Thiel 3.6 for like 10 years, and before that Thiel 2.2 for about the same amount of time. I've not heard the X250.5 myself. But I have read equal amount of opinions from (supposedly) people that have compared the X250.5 and the X350.5 that one is better than the other.
FrankC