Looking for amp $1000 or under

Your HCA-2 can be a very nice amp with a very few mods. It has its flaws in stock form but after mod is a totally different amp.  I own a HCA-2 with full blown Reference Audio Mods from back in the day and love it.  I also owned a McCormack DNA-1 with rev-A mods about 10 years ago. If I had to pick one it may be HCA-2. All that needs to be done is change signal caps, power supply caps and rewire with Duelund wire or any nice silver solid core wire and new binding post, get that Monster cable out of there. If you can't solder pay someone it's an easy job. You can pick up another HCA-2 for 4 or $500, mod it and the one you own for under $500 and then by amp. I'm running HCA-2 with Bruce Moore Preamp with Joseph Audio speakers in a second system and listen to it more than my main system, it's that good. Don't underestimate your amp.

Are you leaving amp on 24/7 if not it sounds like crap. I've never seen an amp take so long to come around after sitting up like HCA-2. McCormack and other a/b amps took 1 to 2 days to warm up. HCA-2 can take 4 to five which I've never seen an amp take that long. If you don't have a good power conditioner it sounds bad. I use a passive conditioner. 

Thank you for all your suggestions. Paul can you tell me where and the parts I need to get for the modifications?
Thanks 
Ron D.

Sure, if you want to give it a shot start off just changing out the 4 signal coupling caps. 2 caps are run in series for each channel to total 4 signal caps. Back when this amp was being modded everyone was using black gates but they are no longer available. You could consider Audio Note caps. Contact Chris at Parts Connextion he may be able to guide you with the best cap choice and new internal wire. Also Jeff at Sonicraft can help. Call PS Audio they will email you the schematics. Total cost can't cost more than $100 or so for caps and wire. Those stock signal caps are cheap junk so is stock monster wire. Google PS Audio HCA-2 Reference Audio Mods Audio Circle or anything with modding the PS Audio HCA 2, there is a lot of info out there. Another tweak to help smooth out hca2 is to remove the bolt holding down the tordal transformer, it is noticeable but subtle. if you do remove bolt just be careful when moving amp around. If you do this and like what you hear then move on to changing out power supply caps.

Get schematics from ps Audio they have awesome customer service and the answer phone and will send you schematics on the spot. Then email schematics to parts Connextion and Sonicraft and they will guide you through mod.