Don’t buy used McCormack DNA 1990s amps

@mitch2

I believe you guys are making assumptions based on facts not in evidence, and unfairly casting SMc Audio in a negative light.  If you know Steve and Patrick, you would also know that there are not many folks in the audio industry who care as much about the satisfaction of their customers as they do, and you would also know that they have had more than a steady flow of work for years now.  Steve continues to move forward with new products benefiting from his 40+ years in the business and, for him, creating high quality audio playback equipment is clearly as much or more a calling than a business.  SMc certainly do not need to add clients by fear-mongering owners of old amplifiers manufactured by the former McCormack Audio into taking action before the inevitable failure of their amplifier's input boards. 

I do agree with you that most of us have no direct dealings with S. McCormack or Patrick and as such we are just making assumptions based on the facts we can see from our limited interactions (email) or reading of the direct interactions that customers like you have had. As such we may be making the wrong assumption. 

The one thing that bothers me in this current situation is the fact the SMc has stopped giving the schematics out for the old 1990's DNA amps to owners/techs interested in servicing them. If you do a bit of searching you'll find where Steve was noted as being quite open to supplying the schematics to folks for a number of years and that has stopped. I also talked with Conrad Johnson and they will also not supply the schematics, but I kind of expected that as CJ bought the rights to those McCormack amps >20yrs ago.

Because these schematics were at one time given out that tells me that Steve didn't consider them proprietary back then, so that wouldn't have changed. If he's worried about the safety factor of these amps then he should've put out a service bulletin and supplied a replacement input board at a reasonable cost many years ago because some of these amps input boards failed early on back 20+ yrs ago. Irregardless, in the interest of safety if that's what SMc is worried about, a large red lettered addendum on the front page of the service manual could be added stating the fact that the amps with input board problems should be considered due for board replacement and should not be repaired.

There are plenty of qualified technical people out there that are capable of servicing these amps. The thing is that many techs will not touch an amp if they cannot get the schematic. The reason is that the amount of labor/time goes up dramatically when you're working on a piece of electronics without a schematic.

BTW, To anyone interested. CJ will still service the DNA amps. When I asked them for the schematics I was given a quote for a full recap and a replacement of the input board.

I suspect this is heading way deep into proprietary business issues.  Since C-J acquired McCormack, it would seem that any notifications about the equipment would be the responsibility of C-J and likewise any sharing of equipment schematics would be their prerogative.  

My (perhaps ill-advised) comment earlier in this thread saying "unless the amps are blowing up and houses are burning down" was clearly intended as tongue-in-cheek to illustrate that IMO the OP was a little over the top in his message.  Hopefully, that did not prompt anyone to believe there was an actual safety issue with the input boards.  SMc worked on a DNA-2 LAE that I owned and at no time did I hear anything about a safety issue.  In the case of my DNA-2, I had a full upgrade performed so the failed input board was replaced as part of a larger project.  The decision to spend the money to replace only the input board without further upgrades would obviously vary from owner to owner.

If anyone has service questions, they could visit the McCormack Audio website, where they can find the following message:

McCormack Audio has suspended production of all McCormack brand products and has no remaining inventory.
Service for McCormack products, including model and capacitor upgrades continues to be offered through our sister company, conrad-johnson design, inc.
For more information on service and upgrades of McCormack products, please contact us by email at service@mccormackaudio.com, or by phone at 703-698-8581 

After 25 - 30 years, ANY amp can fail, go out of spec, or just not perform as well as new. The pricing people are asking on equipment this old is ridiculous, but as always, buyer beware. HNY. My best, MrD. 

@mrdecibel Completely agree with you on all points.  But, the difference here is there is one specific part that has already shown itself very prone to failure for a very specific design reason and, unlike many other older amps and makes it more than likely for the fail and not easily or cheaply repaired because of it.  Again, my purpose here was to alert people who may be considering these 1990s amps, that come up for sale quite often, to at least be aware that they’ve got this very fragile and weak link that has, in fact, been failing because this specific part just doesn’t last much more than 20 years.  Granted with amps of this age it’s totally buyer beware, but I thought it helpful given this specific situation and failing part that people might at least like to know this going in.  Wouldn’t you?  Given what I know (and have experienced personally) I certainly would not buy one of these amps unless my plan was to get it upgraded, because there are plenty of other great used amps out there that do not have this specific degrading part and that, even if they do have an issue, can be repaired much easier and cheaper.  But that’s me. 

Soix, I have no problem with your post, as I understand and am behind you !