Come with me as we repair a rarely-seen Mitsubishi DA-P10 dual-mono pre-amplifier and DA-A10 dual-mono power amplifier!
UPDATE, December 2024: The owner has returned, paid the account and collected these beauties! Woo hoo!
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.
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 and following up multiple times, he vanished. This individual has not made contact since leaving these with me, and that was almost 6 months ago.
I’m pretty flexible in terms of finalising accounts, collection and short-term storage. 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. 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!
I don’t enjoy selling abandoned equipment, but this account is now almost 6 months overdue, so these pieces are now available for sale (not any more, see update below). Let me know if you’d like them, details at the end of the article.
Disappearing Customer Update…
10 December 2024: Incredibly, the equipment owner appeared at my doorstep unannounced and apparently ‘unaware’ of my numerous attempts to contact him and massively overdue invoices! I was very pleased to see him of course but I emphasised how lucky he was and is that the equipment is still here and wasn’t sold to recoup costs. I’ve reissued the invoices and asked for immediate payment.
UPDATE, 14 December 2024: The owner has now paid the account and collected these beauties! A great result in the end. Woo hoo!
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, 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
| Power output: | 100 watts per channel into 8Ω (stereo) |
| Frequency response: | 20Hz to 20kHz |
| Total harmonic distortion: | 0.1% |
| Damping factor: | 100 |
| Input sensitivity: | 1V |
| Signal-to-noise ratio: | 100dB |
| Speaker load impedance: | 4Ω (minimum) |
| Dimensions: | 425 x 170 x 285mm |
| Weight: | 16.5kg |
| Year: | 1976 |
Mitsubishi DA-P10, courtesy of HiFi Engine
| Frequency response: | 10Hz to 70kHz |
| Total harmonic distortion: | 0.02% |
| Input sensitivity: | 2.2mV (MM), 150mV (line) |
| Signal-to-noise ratio: | 79dB (MM), 90dB (line) |
| Channel separation: | 80dB (MM), 85dB (line) |
| Output: | 150mV (line), 1V (Pre out), 9V (Pre out Max) |
| Dimensions: | 425 x 170 x 204mm |
| Weight: | 5.8kg |
| Year: | 1976 |
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, even though their owner abandoned them. I’m especially pleased because the owner seemed to love them, given how great they sound and how unique and rare they are to find here in Australia. These two now run perfectly. Her next owner can ponder if they’d like to have anything additional done, but none is needed.
Sonically, these two are very impressive. I’ve tested the pair several times and have been impressed by their warmth and punch through my Yamaha NS-10Ms. Not all amps sound particularly good, some are amazing and some are awful. This pair sounds very good, confirmed by several who’ve heard them.
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 just $1950, but make me an offer if you’d like them, I might just be able to do you a special price on what is a superb-sounding pre/power combo! Prospective customers are welcome to test this pair for themselves, I can set them up for an audition. Local buyers only.
UPDATE, December 2024: The owner has returned, paid the account and collected these beauties! Woo hoo!
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 🙂
Share this:
Discover more from LiQUiD AUDiO
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
My father sold this brand TVs and Hi fi but the Hi fi was a lot more basic than this but all proved very reliable in use ( Adams brothers Northfield UK )
Thanks Phil and yes this was very much at the premium end of the equipment they made and designed to be partnered with Diatone speakers for example that they were more known for.
Beautiful work, Mike! Glad to see that pair is living to see another happy owner! Good to get all that corrosive glue out of the pre, along with the crappy caps. It’s amazing what damage it can do. Only thing worse that I can think of is the old NiCad batteries, like what you dealt with in the MF preamp you showcased on your YouTube channel. The electrical taped power cord made me chuckle! I’m surprised there wasn’t any other issue with the amp outside of the charred board. She really had a hot supper there. Likely a failing solder joint that started arcing worse and worse until the phenolic started burning. Nobody would ever be able to make that repair look pretty, but the connection is now as good as new.
As for the previous owner, I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt. You never know what could have happened, especially if he was eager beforehand and stopped replying all together randomly. I had a buddy who went to sell a Pioneer M-22 I restored. Just after payment, the buyer disappeared for three months and it turned out he had a medical emergency. He came back and was thankful that we didn’t move on after not having a shipping address for that time. But six months? I don’t blame you whatsoever here. You run a business, and it’s not your responsibility to babysit equipment like that.
Hoping you find a great owner for this set to get years more enjoyment out of. Looking forward to the next article (and video!) that you have in store for us. Cheers!
Hi Connor and season’s greetings! Thanks for the support, there is a bit more to this one that I will update as things transpire, but incredibly, the owner appeared at my door yesterday, seemingly ‘unaware’ of the implications of the 6-month delay, outstanding invoices, etc! I’ve re-sent invoices and requested immediate payment. He’s lucky the equipment is still here, a customer nearly bought the pair the other day. I’ll be happy if/when the account is paid and the equipment gone. Keep up the great work and Merry Xmas, from Perth Western Australia! UPDATE: It finally happened, after 6 months the owner has now paid for and collected his equipment, you beauty!
Hey Liquid Mikey
You are too generous to a fault but don’t forget there are a lot of nimrods out there myself included.
Better to be a glass half full person and it sounds like your business is flying so all good and Festive Greetings to everyone reading this
Would love to chat to you in 2025 about business, beer, music and hfi of course!
Hey Frank, it’s all good, thank you, your support is very much appreciated, as it is from all my amazing customers! Luckily the rest are less than 1% I reckon and we just work around those. Seasons greetings and let’s definitely have that chat in 2025!