New Adcom Products Any Good?

That is completely unreasonable.

 

Heck with emails at this point....I'd be calling them on the phone every day.

 

Thanks Jon. Today I called the service center, Affiliated Electronics, just before 10 am. A real person answered. She requested my name, phone number, and type of product. She said she would call back in 20 minutes. No return call. At 1 pm, I called again. This time an answering machine took my message. This happened (answering machine) again at 3 pm. I will also call repeatedly tomorrow.

When possible I prefer responses in email because they are more legally binding than phone promises.

At this point it seems Adcom's phone responses are no more satisfying than their email responses.

 

If you used a credit card for payment contact the card issuer and state your case. You likely can get your money refunded from the company you purchased from. Then save up and get a used Bryston - they are built like tanks and have a transferable 20 year warranty.

And good luck!

 

Thanks GE. I requested a refund and soon thereafter the repair center called saying they had just put my amp on the bench & it would be a simple bias adjustment. One week later, today, I received my repaired amp. It's in my system again. Yah!!

 

Bad news!

A few minutes into listening and, pop, a noise from my right speaker. No other sounds from the right channel after that. I removed the top of the Adcom GFA-555se and both fuses were blown on the right rail. I replaced them and re-powered the amp with nothing else hooked up and, pow, the fuses blew again. I suspect this problem is related to the earlier bias problem. Seems I am back to square one trying to get Adcom to honor the warranty or refund my money for this lemon.

 

This is really bad. Definitely get your money. This is from a guy who has tried having things repaired repeatedly and ended up with an out of warranty boat anchor.

My brother in law has one of the old Adcom amps and it has been running for years. I have an old Adcom in my HT and it has been going strong for many years. This new stuff must be poorly made/designed.

 

Got my GFA-555se back once again from Affiliated Electronics (NJ). They replaced the right channel (under warranty). Not sure what that entails, but I am up and listening again for now. Hopefully this will be my last post on the saga of Adcom purchases.

-Mike

 

Jeez...good luck!

 

My Adcom GFA 7605 was built in Thailand. It sounds fantastic!

 

Adcom is synonymous of corporate greed & inertia. It's time for them to turn out the lights,& put the key in the door forever.

 

Just purchased 2x Adcom GFA 555se. Listening and owned a lot of amplifiers I always thought my Adcom GFA 545 mkII sounded more precise,detailed and with much tighter and better low end than my i.e Cambridge Audio CXA80 (2016) design.
With this criteria i purchased two 2x Adcom GFA 555se, intending to use them in vertical passive bi-amping configuration for my B&W 805s. Mainly I am using The Audio Cambridge CXN as a digital source for TIDAL, Spotify, and FLACK from NAS drives. using one of the new Adcoms on stero mode after few days of burning inn, i notice great improvement in all areas apart than I would have to say the bass was a bit bloated compared to the 545 MKII,
Also i noticed the heat-sinks temperatures had a really big difference working under the same conditions. Left Chanel with right Chanel unit 1 ( L slightly warm, R Almost cold). Unit 2 ( L warm to Hot , R Almost warm).
1. Can anybody explain why, and if Bias , dc offset has something to do with it.
2. Any ideas why the bass sounds bit bloated and if any cure.

 

i've had my adcom amp & pre-amp for years, never ever even a glitch (knock on wood) . love the stuff.

 

I know nothing about current Adcom other than they have nothing much in common with the original company.

I still have and have used in various systems through out their life with me a GFA 555II power amp, A GTP 565 preamp and 2 GFA 5800 power amps all bought new back in the day some 20+ years ago.

All still work perfect.

IMO the GFP 565 is a solid benchmark for what a great MM phono section should sound like and IMO easily can run with anything put out in the last 20+ years at well over 3X the MSRP cost of the GFP 565. 1992 MSRP was $800 I paid $600 discounted, they are selling used in good condition for $350 on E Bay. Not bad resale for a 25 year old unit. If I just needed a phono section next week I'd buy this unit used just for the phono section! The line section is very good also and it has more than enough controls, inputs, outputs and true bypass capabilities and compatibility to work well in many different stereo systems.

The GFA 555II 200 WPC (bridgeable) power amp 1992 MSRP was $800 I paid $66o discounted and current E Bay prices for nice ones are around $400. Again not bad resale for a 25 year old unit. Many folks praise this amp, some folks just hate it. The reason is simple IMO, It's fussy about what speakers you pair it with and what preamp, it DOES have the ability to sound jaw dropping amazing, and has enough power to run ANY speaker system at high volumes for extended periods without batting an eye, all of this with no fan needed.
Recent test of this classic amp yielded the following:
While rated for 200 watts per channel into 8 Ω, this 20-year old amp easily put out 260 watts from each channel simultaneously at only 0.007% THD into 8 Ω. ADCOM rates it as able to drive 2 Ω loads, and rates it for 850 watts at 0.09% THD into 4 ohms in bridged mono!

ADCOM GFA-555 II Review »



The (newer than the GFA 555II) GFA 5800 250 WPC power amp 1993 MSRP was $1600.
I paid $1200 discounted and current E Bay prices for nice ones are around $700. Again not bad resale for a 20+ year old unit. Again Many folks praise this amp, and you don't see tons being sold used. IMO it does not sound much if any better than the 555II IN MOST OF MY SYSTEMS. I think this amp is much less fussy about speakers and preamps compared to the 555II. IMO the 555II is a much better value IF it plays well with the rest of your system.