Don’t buy used McCormack DNA 1990s amps
This is a public service announcement. There are some yahoos on other sites selling 1990s McCormack DNA amps, sometimes at ridiculous prices. While they’re great amps, and I happily owned a DNA 0.5 RevA for 20 years, they’re all gonna fatally fail. Why? Because their input board is at the end of its useful life, and when it fails your amp is dead and not repairable by anyone — not even SMcAudio. It’s a boat anchor. The only option is to sell it for scraps or get an SMcAudio upgrade that’ll cost around $2000. Given my love of my amp I chose to do full upgrades given what else I could’ve gotten for the same same price and just got it back and will forward thoughts if anyone cares. But the purpose of this post is to warn off any prospective buyers of a circa 1990s DNA amp that it’ll fatally fail soon, so unless you get a great price and plan on doing the SMcAudio upgrades just avoid these amps on the used market. You’ve been warned.
Bummer; I had been in vague discussions with Patrick regarding upgrading my DNA500. Never really got any specific prices. Probably mostly my fault for not pursuing. Anybody know of anyone else doing work on these amps. Maybe it's better to move on to another brand like Pass Labs etc. that's currently in production. Love the DNA500. Still sounds great. I have it paired with CJ Gat. Good match. Has not given me any trouble. Leave it on all the time as the relay switch is sketchy.
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Photodusty - Yes, the circuit boards are the same in the DNA-1 Standard & Deluxe. The difference was in the higher-performance / more-expensive parts used in key circuit locations in the Deluxe model. This included resistors, capacitors, diodes, wire, and connectors.
The new main board I designed as a replacement upgrade (called the "R3 board") fits both the DNA-1 & DNA-0.5 amps.
Pereza - I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying your DNA-500 - it's a fine amp. The reason we don't offer upgrades for it any more has nothing to do with its circuit boards or any reliability issue - it's just so big and heavy that it becomes a major pain to work on and thus costs a lot more than we feel makes sense. I hope you will continue to enjoy it.
Steve McCormack |
@stevemcx Thanks for chiming in here Steve — most helpful. Not to get too much into the weeds here, but I’d think since I assume both the DNA-1 and 0.5 input boards were designed around the same time and assuming they’re more alike than different, what makes the DNA-1 board more prone to failure, or, what makes the 0.5 board less prone to failure? Just curious because that’s very interesting. Sorry to take your time, but thanks for any thoughts. |
