2. amps-preamps
  3. 181722-96

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. 

soix
soix OP
9,558 posts
 

Patrick didn’t refer me to the agent. The agent introduced me to Patrick and I spoke with Patrick about it.
 

Your story is now contradicting itself   This is what you wrote before  

Let me put it this way, when I asked Pat about how much it would cost to upgrade to balanced inputs and an external power supply, he stated that he could not discuss pricing with me and I had to go through this agent.

You can’t even keep your story straight.  Stop blaming SMcAudio for some agent who quoted you an unfair price.

 

fishagedone
43 posts
 

Soix, 

I see reading comprehension isn't your strong point so I'll repeat: the salesperson introduced me to Pat, but I spoke to both of them during this time period.  Are we clear now?

cheeg's avatar
cheeg
246 posts
 

@soix, thanks for starting this chain of posts – I can’t believe how many responses it has generated.  Like you, I am a very happy owner of a rebuilt DNA-1, but a comment in one of the posts much earlier said that the on/off switch on the front panel only turns the blue light off, and leaves the rest of the amp on. Can you please confirm that this is true? I have been occasionally turning off the panel switch when lightning may be coming to my area, and assuming that the amp would be protected. If I need to actually unplug the amp, please let me know. 

soix OP
9,558 posts
 

@cheeg  I think it depends on what version of the upgrades you have.  Mine was done a couple years ago and my power switch is just a dummy light — not my favorite feature.  Should be pretty easy to tell if your power switch is active just by turning the amp off while music is playing.  Whether the music stops or not will give you your answer.  Patrick told me their newest upgrade uses a magnetic power switch so if you do an upgrade now you get an active power switch. 

mitch2
4,006 posts
 

FWIW, pmy monoblocks have no power switch at all, if they are plugged in then they are powered on. My SMc DAC has the magnetic switch.  For my preamp, I believe there is a power switch on the outboard power supply.

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