Come with me as we repair a rarely-seen Mitsubishi DA-P10 dual-mono pre-amplifier and DA-A10 dual-mono power amplifier!

Readers might not know that Mitsubishi made hi-fi gear, not just cars and industrial equipment. In Japan they traded under a hi-fi specific brand you may have heard of – Diatone, and produced some crazy good speakers for example, like the Diatone DS-5000, and many others.

The Mitsubishi DA-P10 / DA-A10, also sold as the Diatone DA-P10 / DA-A10, are beautiful examples of their craft, a pre/power amp combination that bolts together to form a one-piece ‘integrated’ amplifier with serious punch. For those interested, this Mitsubishi DA-P10 / DA-A10 pair is for sale; details are at the end of the article.

Background

This gorgeous, dead Mitsubishi DA-P10 / DA-A10 pair came to me via a new customer who seemed very keen to have them running again. I was naturally keen to help him, so we discussed his budget and I promised to do my best and let him know the news.

You can imagine how pleased I was to get both of these beauties cleaned up and running beautifully again and for considerably less than the allocated budget. This is an especially good result when you see how the power amplifier had failed, later in this article.

Unfortunately though, after emailing and calling the customer with the good news multiple times, he vanished and has not made contact since leaving these with me. That was almost 6 months ago.

I’m pretty flexible in terms of finalising accounts, collection and short-term storage but I’m running a business. There is a little room to move but we are talking days rather than months! Variation from standard terms must also be agreed upon and that means there needs to be a conversation.

Equipment abandonment is a worst-case scenario and extremely unusual. Cases like this waste time, energy and goodwill and put me in an awkward and unnecessary position. Thankfully I’ve only had two other abandonments in 10+ years and thousands of jobs, more on those here. That’s because of overwhelmingly great customers, and some careful filtering on my part!

My payment-on-collection policy generally safeguards against non-payment but not always. If there are financial issues, I’ll be happy to offer assistance via a payment plan for example but disappearing and leaving a sizable bill with someone you’ve hired to do a job is never OK.

I don’t enjoy selling abandoned equipment but as this account is now almost 6 months overdue which means these pieces are now available for sale. Let me know if you’d like them, details at the end of the article!

Features

The Mitsubishi DA-P10 / DA-A10 pre/power combo is just that – a preamplifier and power amplifier that bolt together, to form one rather heavy ‘integrated’ amplifier without the usual integrated amplifier compromises.

As the dual-mono name suggests, these two are constructed in dual-mono fashion with separate left and right transformer windings and two separate buffer and phono boards in the DA-P10 preamplifier, and separate transformers, power supplies and heatsink assemblies for the DA-A10 power amplifier.

Construction quality is very good and the preamp has all the expected filters, headphone socket and phono stage, and some lovely knobs and rack handles. The power amplifier has little coloured thermal indicators on the heatsinks to visually indicate overheating and nothing else to note except for the heavy build, 100 Watts per channel and thoughtfully placed channels within each heat sink to neatly route power and signal cables.

Mitsubishi DA-P10 / DA-A10 Specifications

Mitsubishi DA-A10, courtesy of HiFi Engine

Mitsubishi DA-P10, courtesy of HiFi Engine

Resurrection

So, what was wrong with these two? Quite a bit. Both needed deep cleaning and TLC that included various component replacements in the DA-P10 pre and significant power supply faults/issues rectified (get it..?) in the DA-A10 power amplifier. Keep in mind that this was a repair and service work order. You’ll see no crazy shotgun parts replacement here. Let’s go!

Mitsubishi DA-P10 Preamplifier

Mitsubishi DA-A10 Power Amplifier

Results

I’m sure you’ll agree that saving these two was well worth the effort, especially given how nice they sound and how unique and rare they are to find here in Australia. Keep in mind this was a repair and service job. Her next owner can ponder what if any additional work they’d like to have done, and they may be perfectly happy with this duo as they are.

In terms of moving this abandoned Mitsubishi pair on, I would much rather the owner collect and pay for them, but as this hasn’t happened and I don’t have the space to store them, they have to go.

I’m offering this Mitsubishi DA-P10 / DA-A10 pair for $1950. The warranty period for the work I did back in June has elapsed but I tested them again today (11-11-2024) and they are running very nicely. Prospective customers are of course welcome to test the pair in the workshop.

For anyone worried about the original owner of this equipment ‘looking’ for these pieces, two things: 1) it’s a little late for that now, and 2) rest assured that I’m legally entitled to sell equipment when been abandoned for a certain amount of time. Local buyers only!

As always, thank you very much for visiting. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like me to look at your Mitsubishi / Diatone hi-fi equipment or any other classic hi-fi gear for that matter.

More soon, friends 🙂