Thoughts on the Adcom GFA-7000 amp

Jestered

Anyone have any thoughts on this amp? My setup is in my sig and I prefer a brighter sound from my speakers.

Thanks!

B Run

I had one for a while, my first and only run with separates but it got the job done nicely. I had it on my Rti8's and it had all the power I needed, so you'll be good to go. Great budget amp, to me it was pretty neutral and had nice bass although not the final word in clarity, seemed slightly grainy compared to my SC-35.

Jestered

B Run wrote: »

I had one for a while, my first and only run with separates but it got the job done nicely. I had it on my Rti8's and it had all the power I needed, so you'll be good to go. Great budget amp, to me it was pretty neutral and had nice bass although not the final word in clarity, seemed slightly grainy compared to my SC-35.

Thanks for the response! I'm not really looking for "louder", so clarity would be more important to me. It sounds like from your experience that this may not be the amp for me. Even so, is $300 a decent price for this amp? It sounds like it to me, but...

I'm also from ATX, so it's nice to see another Austinite on here.

B Run

Yeah and honestly for $300 you should pick it up and try it for yourself. I wasn't trying to scare you off with that comment it's a nice amp. You'll be able to get your money back out of it if you don't like it but I think you will. At the time I was really new into audio but it was an improvement over my Pioneer VSX-1222's internal amps, and I used it with several different AVR's before selling it to someone on the forum (Codyc1ark I think) for what I paid for it. Like I said it's worth the investment and the only reason I sold it is at the time, doing a-b comparisons with the SC-35 I didn't feel the need to keep it. I wish i'd had my Rti12's at the time it probably would have been easier to tell the difference since they're much more demanding. Always good to see more Austinites on here!

Jestered

Thanks again B Run. I've reached out to this person and will get the amp if it's still available. I'll let you know what I think if/when I get it.

Jestered

DSkip wrote: »

If you like it bright, emotiva might not be a bad place to look. It will hold its value very well and should still give your speakers the kick to convince you amps make a difference.

You know, that's why I started looking at the Emotiva amps because I've read that they're supposed to produce a brighter sound. They appear to be good "bang for your buck" amps. Maybe I'll keep looking for one of those, but $300 for the Adcom amp may at least get me some real world experience with a stand-alone amp. Hmmmmm....

Jestered

DSkip wrote: »

I personally feel that the pairing would be horrible, but its all subjective.

The pairing with the Adcom or the Emotiva?

Nightfall

Jestered wrote: »

The pairing with the Adcom or the Emotiva?

Emotiva

ZLTFUL

As DSkip said, taking an amp that is inherently *bright* in its sound and combining it with speakers that are bright in their nature (being that they are more directed towards HT than "hifi audio") is going to combine to produce a harsher sound.

I had an Emotiva amp (3 total in fact) paired with Monitor Series IIs and quite frankly, the over the top edginess to the highs was very fatiguing even in just movies.

The Adcom on the other hand is hard to beat at $300. I am a very firm believe in Adcom's products nowadays. Having owned 3 GFA-555s, a GFA-5500 and a GFA-5503. In fact, I am looking to add yet another Adcom in the near future.

Parasound is another good pairing with Polk speakers although they tend to be priced a bit higher than Adcom.

If you had LSis, I would definitely suggest the Emotiva as an option (even though it still wouldn't be my first choice) but with the RTiAs, I think you are setting yourself up for an overly harsh listening environment.

leftwinger57

With my limited experience w/ an Adcom gfa555 I find it to be as neutral as a ss amp can be be. I do believe that the speakers contribute more to ear fatigue than the amp ever will .Take my pathetic Infinty SM112s ,these were the most tinny , hollow , earpiercing things I have ever heard, granted they came in a great looking cabinet but they did suck on the sound side which is why you get speakers in the 1st place..A lot here with more hands on w/ different amps will chime in but for me and the speakers I own now the Adcom is a match I can always live with.

codyc1ark

I've had a 7000 for two or three years now, still chugging along. I doubt that at 300 you can to much better. I don't get the grainy sound, but from what I understand the amp was recapped before I got a hold of it, I'll confirm that once it gets colder and I pull some equipment out to dynomat it. Go for it, you can't go wrong and if you don't like it for whatever reason you'll be able to sell it for what you buy it for.

Midnite Mick

I had a 5500. Thought it was just okay. Kind of grainy but for $300 hard to have buyer remorse buying anything. Plus you are guaranteed to get your money back flipping it as long as it is working.

Good luck,
Mike

drummer86

Best thing about buying used amps is that you can almost always get what you payed if you choose to sell them. At that price, you may even make a buck or two if you don't love it. Additionally, the more things you hear the more defined your taste will be. Now you can add "familiar with the Adcom sound" to your belt.

Jestered

Do any of you know if you can use the GFA-7000 with 3 channels only? Or do you have have 5 channels connected for it to work? I thought I read somewhere that they're all grounded together so you cannot run it without all 5 channels.

codyc1ark

You can run it with just three without hurting it.

Jestered

The person selling the Adcom hadn't responded for a week or so, so I was about to pull the trigger on a used Emotive XPA-3. Literally minutes before buying the Emotiva, the guy with the Adcom emailed me and he still had it. I picked it up last Wednesday and got it set up on Thursday. My thoughts:

*I hooked it up as a 3 CH amp powering my front stage only. When I first hooked it up and turned everything on the front stage sounded "different". It was louder than my surrounds, which made the front stage sound more powerful. I immediately ran the MCACC and it equaled everything out. At that point it didn't sound much different, but there was a change.

*The main things I picked up on right away was that the highs sounded a little clearer. There seemed to be more separation between the highs and lows/mids. The front stage sounded a little wider. It also seemed that if there were two people talking on the TV, I could close my eyes and tell which side they were standing on.

*After a short while I started wondering if this was all in my head because everything started to sound like it did before the amp. Occasionally I did hear something, usually something about the highs, that sounded a little different, but for the most part it didn't sound much different than it did before the amp. At that point it was getting late and I needed to go to bed, so I did. The next morning I got up and kind of forgot about the amp. I got my coffee and headed for the TV to watch the news before heading into the office. I turned everything on and as soon as the sound kicked in I thought to myself, "Whoa! That's different.". I definitely noticed some improvement in the audio and it wasn't my mind playing tricks on me because I wasn't even thinking about the amp at that point.

I haven't had a lot of time with it since getting it hooked into my setup, but so far so good. Is it night and day difference? No, it's not. Is there improvement? Yes, there is. The improvement is subtle, but detailed, which has a big impact. At least to me anyway. Out of those subtle improvements, the things that create the biggest impact are the clearer highs, the wider stage coming from the front, and the separation from the highs and lows/mids. It all gives the front stage a more "surround sound" impact, which is subtle, but does a lot.

I'm happy with it so far, and for $300 I don't have any plans on selling it.

tonyb

Congrats on the amp, at higher volumes the differences will become even more apparent.

drummer86

Report back after your first bluray. Should notice quite an improvement during demanding parts where your AVR may have run out of steam. You may not have noticed that anything was lacking before, but you'll most likely notice that there's something better now. Congrats on the purchase.

gmcman

Just out of curiosity, what are you using for interconnects and speaker cabling? Are you using any digital inputs to the AVR?

Jestered

tonyb wrote: »

Congrats on the amp, at higher volumes the differences will become even more apparent.

Thanks! I'm hoping to have a little free time this week so I can push it more and see exactly what it's doing in different scenarios. I look forward to that.

drummer86 wrote: »

Report back after your first bluray. Should notice quite an improvement during demanding parts where your AVR may have run out of steam. You may not have noticed that anything was lacking before, but you'll most likely notice that there's something better now. Congrats on the purchase.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that I've only been able to watch DirecTV and I have not had a chance to throw a bluray in or listen to any music since adding the amp. I'm hoping I get to do that soon.

gmcman wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, what are you using for interconnects and speaker cabling? Are you using any digital inputs to the AVR?

All of my components are connected to the Pioneer Elite through HDMI. My speaker wire is all 14 gauge wire that I got through monoprice. It's been a few years since I got that, but I know it's 14 gauge speaker wire. I'm using Emotiva XVRCA interconnects. When I was researching the Emotiva amps I was on their site and noticed that their interconnects were on sale. They're normally $39.99 for the 1 meter cable, but they were selling them for $15.99, so I went ahead and ordered two of those.

gmcman

What settings are you using on the AVR? Are you using a direct mode or similar or are you using different surround functions? Are you finding the highs lacking in 2CH only or other modes?

tonyb

Jester,

Cool man, report back when you had a chance to take it for a spin. On another note and just a suggestion, maybe read up on some cable threads, see what others are using, get a feel for what might benefit you. I can pretty much guarantee that switching out those cables will yield you some nice upticks in SQ.