Author Topic: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.  (Read 29774 times)

Offline richidoo

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Re: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.
« Reply #45 on: July 14, 2011, 07:31:30 AM »
Weird is fine here. Let it all out. You'll feel much better.

Offline rollo

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Re: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.
« Reply #46 on: July 14, 2011, 08:38:15 AM »
  Synergy is in the eye of the beholder. Best ??? There is no best. Budget is an issue to a point. As an outsider looking in the CJ gives you tone, body and soul. The rotel is a tad on the warm side of neutral, the Vandy's warm and rich. Hmmmmmmm.
  You have some options to try. First off an Audio Research amp is a dynamic neutral amp having wonderfull synergy with Vandersteen and CJ preamps. Your source is fine. The speaker can be changed as well keeping all you have.
  If it were me a AR amp with either your CJ or a passive[ that's right] by Luminous audio can be made to match your source and amp. Under $250 buckaroos.
   If all else fails get those tuning bells out and tune your Zen cave. :rofl: :rofl:


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BrentoRudra

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Re: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.
« Reply #47 on: July 14, 2011, 10:49:15 AM »
Well, since it's discontentment time (summer usually is for me with regard to audio) I'm trying all sorts of things. When the heat came on, I finally had to turn off the tubes, at least the amps. The C/J pre is not that hot, and for all its muscle, the Rotel runs cool also.

But here is where the frikkin Nelson Passage began. With a Nakamichi surround receiver. A friend's friend had recently gone AWOL on his former life and more or less burned all his bridges. He gave my friend his storage locker key and said he could have, sell, give away or toss all his earthly possession. He asked me if I wanted to look at any of it. I said any books or electronics and suddenly found my garage full of stuff. My library became impossible, or rather more impossible than it already was at this point. The only electronics that came along with the books was a Nakamichi AV3-S receiver. I let it sit there for a long time. Then out of curiosity I tried it one day and found it was kinda nice. In fact, surprisingly nice. It was a hot day so I left it up.

Then I learn from my main DIY pal that Threshold had licensed out the Pass Stasis amp design to Nakamichi. Evidently some of this remains to even the later surround receivers. I did a bunch of web searching and found out a lot about Nakamichi (the man, the company, the board game) and soon enough landed on things like the PA-7 amp, the PA-5, etc., and from there all over the midfi realm, touching on everything Mr. Zen had had a hand in,finally arriving at the Adcom GFA-5 -- series. This is why I jumped at the new GFA-555 tribute amp ... WHICH, as it turns out (again chez my main DIY man) is based on the GFA-555 II, meaning it has moved very far from the old Nelson Pass into overpriced midfi crap. Meaning very bad customer service from someone reading a script who is looking out the window at Conradian rain forests, pagodas, or Manila gangster fronts replete with stretch limos and guys with cello cases. Like that.

Round and round. Is this familiar?

So, then I wind up on Audionervosa, maybe where I should have started in the first place, considering how much helpful advice and what an education I'm receiving here! Hi, guys! Where were we?

Offline allenzachary

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Re: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.
« Reply #48 on: July 14, 2011, 11:37:55 AM »
We were trying to decide if you wanted to spend $200, $400, $1000 or $0. 

$200=B&K ST140
$400=B&K ST202plus
$1000=McCormack (model tbd)

$0= stand pat with what you've got.

Question: How much heat is generated by your equipment?  Do you have central air conditioning?  Is your room air-conditioned at all?  Where do you live?

Me: I live in South Carolina, which is HOT in the summer.  My city, Columbia, is the hottest portion of the state.  It's advertising slogan is "Famously Hot," with is a half truth...there is nothing famous about Columbia.  I, too, use a tube preamp, Audilble Illusions Modulus 2D (aka The Tube Eater) along with my B&K SS amp.  My amp runs hotter when it is at idle than at high volumes, and I keep it at idle all the time because it sounds MUCH better warm than cold.

My house doesn't get any warmer because of my hifi.  Why are you so concerned about heat and seasonal stereos? 




BrentoRudra

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Re: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.
« Reply #49 on: July 14, 2011, 12:35:06 PM »
Well, I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area South, meaning Silicon Valley, meaning hot in the summer at times. Not bad but I don't have air conditioning (that would be ridiculous in my house, which has high ceilings downstairs, low ceilings up), and I'm one of these guys who doesn't like to bother his neighbors so I shut the door when I play music, and I don't do well with heat, and so on.

So, now I learn these B&K are hot at idle. Class A? Of course. I don't ask for much, you see. I want power that runs cool and sounds sweet and spacious. I get this with the Rotel. And the Nakamichi receiver. Beginning to wonder if I should just let it go and listen to the Nak receiver. I think my snobbery is coming into play here. I won't allow this thing to sound as good as it does. That can only mean that if I had known about these things years ago I would not be spending a lot of money trying to get it all right.

Now, if the B&K amps are hot, I may as well forget it. Or, if I hear one and go for it, then I have to reformulate the synergy. I suppose just use the Nak when it's too hot, the B&K when it's cool, forget the tubes, etc.

Still want to try out the other DIY guy's Class D mono amps. Working on that now.

Also thinking again about going after big old Nak amps. They come up on eBay now and then.

I am also thinking of walking out the door and not returning to my house until I have found something else to obsess about. Perhaps some extra-marital babe who gives me pleausre of such magnitude that I no longer even need recorded music.


BrentoRudra

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Re: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.
« Reply #50 on: July 14, 2011, 01:22:33 PM »
As for my budget, well, that is contingent. If I want something that costs 1K, well, I will sell something I have around here to get that amount. That's what I mean by horse trading. I've always done that. Briefly, I let myself go to hell with a credit card. Times are harder now. The things I tend to look at belong to friends, are modded by friends, or they are things which I luck upon at garage sales, etc. Nothing new has really interested me for a long time.


Offline tmazz

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Re: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.
« Reply #51 on: July 14, 2011, 08:06:05 PM »
Sorry to get weird. By the way, is that the same Rosenberg who called himself "Gizm", wrote for Postiive Feedback?

One and the same.
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BrentoRudra

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Re: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.
« Reply #52 on: July 15, 2011, 07:13:12 AM »
Right. It was "Gizmo", but I'm sure you were aware of the type-O. Quite the visionary.

BrentoRudra

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Re: Adcom GFA-555, 545, etc.
« Reply #53 on: July 22, 2011, 10:39:18 AM »
Well, I went for the B&K ST-140 Toriodal, I think because it's pretty inside, but more from Allen's intelligent remarks and some research I did and, possibly, just to piss off my DIY friends. Because if, by some chance, the amp, which goes back to the 90s at the very earliest, sounds wonderful, needs no tweaks or upgrades, well that's boring, huh? I'm no fun. It could happen that I'll like my system again. That would REALLY be boring. My friends won't like me any more. I will have to seek out friends who just wanna dig on the music. That would be fun for me. Them, too, if they like Mahler.

My Great System will be comprised of a fine Conrad-Johnson preamp, B&K amp (105 watts, it's the last five that matter!) and Vandersteen 2ce (not even Signature) speakers. If I like it, I will tell you all about it so you can be happy for me.

Of course, this cannot last for long because audio nervosa (the condition, the disease) does not endure remission for long. Big Toys wait in the wings.