Best Pre-amp for the McCormack DNA-1 Deluxe

I am running a Tube Audio Design 150 with my DNA-1 through Vandersteen 2 CE sigs. It has phono and can be had for about $7-800. I had five other pres in 04 and the TAD-150 sounded better than the others by a fairly wide margain, the only one that came close was the ARC SP9 MK2 with Amperex USN-CEP. Read the reviews in the A=gon review section.

Eagleman,

Weren't you having some problems with a speaker humm do to your TAD?? I think the last response I read was that you were sending it back to B-Bee for repair Did that ever get resolved??

Whyt Rabbit,

Yes, I sent it back to Paul and he found that something was burned out. I forget exactly what it was but, it was like that when I received it from the original owner. Paul fixed it right away and sent it back and the original owner sent me a check for the shipping to Paul. Since then I have had no problems. It sounds better than any of the other preamps that I previously tried in 04. It is still in my system and will remain there for the time being. I still have a minor hum which I can fix with a cheater but, it takes away some of the soundstage. The noise is inaudible when music is playing.

Eagleman

Do the McCormack amps have a low input impedance

My amplifiers typically have a 100K input impedance. The only exceptions are the DNA-500 and the amps I have upgraded as monoblocks or with balanced inputs. These amps have a 10K input impedance, as dictated by the balancing transformer.

Best regards,

Steve McCormack
www.SMcAudio.com