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New Adcom GFA-555 se - Special Edition

Adcom is making a new version of the GFA-555 II, the GFA-555 se. This amplifier is essentially the GFA-555 II with slight improvements including balanced inputs larger capacitors resulting in a better soundstage and an even higher damping factor. Did you know that the GFA-555 is likely the best selling piece of hi-fi equipment ever made, with a build of over 100,000 units? The GFA-555se will be available sometime in November.
power_hungry
stonedeaf
101 posts
 
Have a old LG CRT hidef TV that can only feed audio out via Toslink - this goes into the Marantz pre-pro - which gets me a volume control and mute button - something my Benchmark doesn't offer via remote.Very focused on the best LP playback i can afford -CD comes next and the radio and TV/DVD sound is not real important to me.
mdo
1 posts
 
Has anyone auditioned the 555SE versus the 555II or the original 555?
johnss
605 posts
 
The orig. 555 II sold a lot of copies, and was a good value for the dollar. having said that, it would still just about tear your ears off with its harsh high frequency response.

I have worked on a number of the 555 II. They can be made to sound pretty good, but takes considerable work and a lot of parts........As others have mentioned, there are a number of SS amps of equiv. power that have much better long term listening characteristics.
ikonetic
25 posts
 
Like a lot of people, I owned one of these for years and they were a great buy used but there is so much better equipment on the market for the same price now.
chrisr's avatar
chrisr
543 posts
 
My personal experience with Adcom has been really bad.
I purchased a Adcom 5300 in 2001-2 to power some Martin Logans Aerius i. The amp was always used at low to moderate levels (8 to 10 max on the preamp volume knob).
The amp was getting so hot, you could barely put your hand on the top cover. I could have use it to cook.
Same with B&Ws speakers.
Same, and I can understand, with Magnepan, eventhough it was marketed as a tough beefy amp capable of driving any load with huge power reserves. I have sent the amp 3 times for repair. I have never been able to keep this amp running more than 3 weeks without issues. The third time, Adcom sent me a new unit. 3 weeks later, it gave up. I did not want to send it back a fourth time. And Adcom were so proud of themselves that they propose to take back the 5300 and sell me a 5400 30% off! I certainly did not want to heat my house with a 5400.
So I took the 5300 to the dump and the only regret I have is to have paid probably around $400-500 for it back then.
My guess is that in the late 90s Adcom took a gamble and got their stuff manufactured in China where consistent quality was non-existent at the time. Or worse there was a huge error in the 5300 design, which would demonstrate that Audio and amplification is really not what Adcom should do.
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