McCormack DNA 0.5 Gold or what?

I know a lot about these amps.  It's an awesome route to take because you will never have to buy another amp again... Just send it to Steve for whatever next level upgrade you can afford or he crafts.

That being said, you should actually just buy a stock DNA right now and send it to Steve for the most recent updates.  Almost all the legacy updates like the Gold are pretty old and still have the original circuit board. Thus, they are near the end of their useful life and will have to be replaced anyway.

You can still buy the gold now and see how long it lasts you with the original circuit board.  Who knows, it could last another 5 years if you're lucky, but I'm mentioning it so you won't be surprised if it doesn't.

All his current mods start with replacing that driver board which effectively resets the useful life on the amp, so that's your best bang for the dollar, highest performance, and most reliable option.  

Thanks, I didn't know he was still doing the upgrades.

And thanks for the tip on the DNA 1 on ebay.

@labtec   Exactly right!! I just had my 21 year old DNA-1 driver board replaced by Steve and Patrick at SMc Audio along with a panoply of other upgrades such as all new wiring,Furutech IEC inlet new Cardas RCA input jacks and new speaker binding posts.  As good as my Rev A+ amp was it is so much more open, sweet, detailed and dynamic now.  If the OP can get ahold of a previously modded DNA or a stock piece, for a modest investment the SMc guys can do their magic to it.

@hifiman5 Gratz on the recent upgrade.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I recently had a Rev A Platinum updated with similar experience.  I even had him use a smaller version of the Bocchino IEC that he uses on his $20k power distributor.

I've never been disappointed with the mods I've had done in the past, but the delta is even greater now with what he's doing on the power delivery side.  It's an amazing level of refinement and liquidity that is critical to bringing realism and making your toes tap to the music versus just listening to HiFi.