Don’t buy used McCormack DNA 1990s amps

Absolutely correct, soix, and I am excited to hear how you like your rebuild!

I had a DNA-1 Deluxe for 20 years, loved it, and then it died suddenly. Board and/or caps failed. I had been in discussion for several years with Steve Mc and Patrick at SMc Audio to do one of his full upgrades but hadn’t. When it died I called them, and they gave me $400 for the dead amp. A mistake on my part, because I have decided I might like the latest "Full Monty" rebuild he does with his "gravity base" system on the DNA series and I can’t find a dead DNA-1 as the platform for it. When I’ve searched used ones, 20 years old for $1500-2500, I just laugh because they are time bombs. It’s not a question of if they will die (for the reasons Soix described), but when.

The gravity base is a heavy brass plate they build into the amp, iirc, which was developed during their collaboration with David Berning, one of the world’s foremost amplifier designers. They tell me it makes a very worthy improvement to their amps. Steve and SMc are now building very high-end amps and preamps on a per order basis, but still rebuilding his old DNA series because of demand. They have always been special amps and a true value, and people I’ve talked to who have done the latest gravity base full-house upgrade (maybe $3-4k?) say they are as good as anything 2-3X the price. Steve McC has always been about value for the workingman, but now he is doing custom high-end work because of his reputation. One system that he was a team member on is almost $1 MILLION. The high-end world is weird. SMc build a wonderful preamp that was $8K, but it didn't sell much because it was at the low end of the really high end. They got a distributor, doubled the price for the same unit (had to increase the price), and now they can't build them fast enough apparently. Because some people don't think a preamp can be good if it's "only" $8000 but at $16,000 it must be. 

Patrick at SMc is a good guy and can tell you all about what they are doing.

@soix - you cannot say that the board cannot be repaired by anyone.  Do you do repair work yourself?  Any product can be repaired unless the parts cannot be identified or there are no replacement parts available.  That being said, you do not have to get a new board made, you can simply made the part point-to-point wired and get rid of the board altogether.  But you need a competent repair person like we do.  

Well done, Soix!

Great; another "expert" extrapolating from a sample size of 1.

Audio Research Corp will not repair their solid state amps. They say it is not possible. 

A stupid story. I bought my McCormack DNA.5 Deluxe from Progressive Audio on High Street in Columbus OH in 1996 or so. Shortly before, Steve had come to Progressive to give a presentation and promote his gear. There were maybe thirty people in attendance including Progressive's staff who were known to be a bit arrogant. I wanted to mentally justify the purchase and when Steve was taking questions from the audience I sheepishly asked if his amps had a finite life span and if so, how long. The whole audience seemed to let out a collective groan that I had asked the most stupid question imaginable.