McCormack DNA .5 and 1- big difference?

In the past I owned a B&K EX-4420 and ST-3030 amps. Not bad for the money, but the McCormack amps are worlds better. I had a standard DNA-1 and DNA delux monoblocks, never heard a 0.5. I say go for whatever McCormack amp your budget allows.

Shakey

I had a 0.5 Delux and now have 1.0 delux monoblocks. I never had the standard 1.0. What I can tell you is that while the 0.5 delux is a very nice sounding amp for the money, it is far less resolving than the 1.0 delux monos. The 1.0's revealed some problems in upstream components. This lead me to replace the digital front end and preamp. At the end of all of this, my system was worlds better than when I started. The post from Shakeydeal above does not draw a huge distinction between the 1.0 standard and 1.0 delux monoblocks, so maybe my experience will be of some value to you. By the way, both run cool. Not much difference there.

I owned a DNA 0.5 and a DNA 1.0. I always thought the 0.5 sounded a bit smoother, but the 1.0 better controlled the low end on my Vandersteens 2ce's.

Brownsfan,

Those are the monos that I sold you. Hint - my username was something other than Shakeydeal back then.....;-}

Glad you are still liking them, they are excellent amps and extremely hard to find.

Shakey

I would guess you could get a stock DNA-1 or a DNA-0.5 Rev. A for about the same price, so unless you really need that extra power I would think the considerable sonic improvements of the Rev. A mods would far outweigh the DNA-1 power advantage. But hey, if you need the power you need the power. The nice thing is you could try a 0.5 Rev. A and if you find you need more power you can sell it with virtually no loss given the constant demand for these amps.

By the way, the DNA-0.5 really puts out more like 125wpc (as per Steve himself), it's just very conservatively rated as probably is the DNA-1. I've had other 100wpc amps in my system and the DNA-0.5 definitely sounded like a relatively bigger and more powerful amp.

Best of luck...