McCormack DNA-1 or DNA-1 deluxe?

McCormack does offer modifications via SMcAudio. VERY significant improvement and well worth the $, but your most economical way to go over the long run is to get one modified already. SMc is Steve McCormack's side venture and is truely an exemplary supporter of his products. Give them a call and you will get the straight poop. Or check back to your thread in a day or 2, he will often respond here.

The deluxe version has some parts upgrades to the input stage ect. The LATER versions of the The stock Dna-1 has the upgraded parts as stock from what i understand from what steve said.
Id spend the extra 100 and get the deluxe.
If go to the smc wedsite i think there is some great reading there

Yes there is enough difference between the DNA-1 & DNA-1 Deluxe to warrant spending the extra $150.00-$200.00. If you decide to upgrade to revision B it will cost you $500.00 less if you have the Deluxe DNA-1.

I can certainly echo Phd on this from my own experience. Having had a DNA-1 originally, then replacing it, successively, with two different competing amps, before going back to a DNA-1 Deluxe (rest of system was static throughout). To my ears, the Deluxe was clearly an improvement and has clearly reflected any subsequent change to my system. Best of all, it has always made beautiful music. I recently took the fuses out (had it a number of years), cleaned the corrosion off of them and the fuse holder contact points and had an instant and really dramatic "amplifier upgrade" (-:. Good Luck With Your Choice!

Jedi1, you have an excellent amp. When the time permits you should get a Revision B done. The McCormack DNA-1 with Revision B is one of the finest sounding amps I have ever heard & owned. I miss it terribly but recently was able to aquire a McCormack 0.5 Revision A, an excellent amp as well.

Thanks for the responses, friends. Here is a bit of additional background information...

The “Deluxe” upgrade program started with the DNA-1, and consisted of replacing a selected set of parts with higher-performance, more expensive parts for improved performance. In the case of the DNA-1, the RCA jacks and speaker terminals were upgraded to Cardas, and several critical resistors were upgraded to Vishay and Caddock. The regulated power supply rectifier diodes were replaced with soft-recovery units from Harris, and the output wiring was upgraded to Van den Hul. These changes resulted in a nice performance enhancement at a very reasonable cost. The “Deluxe” program proved to be so popular that we extended it to include most of the products produced at McCormack Audio.

Some people have wondered why I didn’t simply make one model with the improved specs. The original reason is simple – I wanted to bring the DNA-1 to market at under $2000. This was very difficult to do while achieving my performance goals, and would have been impossible with the added “Deluxe” parts cost. Setting-up the Deluxe program separately allowed me to offer improved performance while still giving the customer the choice of a lower-cost model. This option was carried-over to many of our other products, and proved to be popular there, as well.

Further information about upgrade options is available on my website - www.SMcAudio.com

Best regards,

Steve McCormack

If you're going to buy a McCormack, as good as they are stock, I would greatly recommend getting a modded one (Rev A or better if you can find it). The differences are astounding. Just one of the best amps you can find anywhere. Period.

Enjoy,
Bob