Adcom Vs Sunfire 400w @ 4 ohms

ben62670

Adcom GFA-585, and Sunfire Cinema Grand

Both are rated at 400w at 4 ohms

In the detail, punch, over all output the adcom smokes the Sunfire in every department. When I crank the Sunfire it cuts out at 108db. I was at 113 with the 585. The only thing that the Adcom did is trip the tweeter protection at high levels where the Sunfire just cut out(is this what clipping is? I have never experienced it before). I was hoping to consolidate my amp collection. I am presently running a GFA-585, 555 , 7500 on my system now.

Ben

mulveling

Funny, my Parasound Halo A21 smokes the Sunfire Signature and PS Audio HCA2 amps I used to own in dynamics, detail, punch, you name it. I'm starting to become a bit wary of the high efficiency designs - maybe it just takes a traditional low-efficiency design like the Halos & that Adcom to get the best dynamics.

The guy at the link below has a really high opinion of the 585 and even claims the modded version outperforms my beloved Halo JC1 monoblocks Must be one hell of an amp you've got there!

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/frmods.html

ben62670

Soft music sounds real nice on it. like Alison Krause, but you stick dire straits in there Money for nothing (not that it is my favorite song but it sure is a good test song) the Sunfire falls flat on its face. Muddy/smeared sounding. Anyone want to buy a Sunfire?

Ben

engtaz

Ben,
That not the best way to sell an amp (Sunfire falls flat on its face. Muddy/smeared sounding). Ha Ha

engtaz

jakelm

What model is it?

Gaara

If I recall correctly you have a Cinema 5 right, 19in version I? I might be interested as well, but jakelm has dibs.

jakelm

Im good Gaara, thanks...I was just wondering which model sucked.:D

Im picking...

Gaara

Honestly this is the first negative review i've heard on these units. Every time I ask for a recommend they are on the top of the list, and all the pros seem to love em.

ben62670

Gaara wrote:

If I recall correctly you have a Cinema 5 right, 19in version I? I might be interested as well, but jakelm has dibs.

Yes it is 200*5 at 8
400*5 at 4
800*5 at 2 time limited

ben62670

engtaz wrote:

Ben,
That not the best way to sell an amp (Sunfire falls flat on its face. Muddy/smeared sounding). Ha Ha

engtaz

Thats my impression of it when you get on the gas. It does sound nice, smooth, runs extremely cool, but hard hitting... no. The bass is there. Its just not like my Adcom. Someone here stated that it would be more of a lateral move than an upgrade. I just wouldn't want to pretend that I love this Amp to sell it. In all fairness (I guess) I am pushing speakers that are rated at 1000w each.
Ben

jdhdiggs

Did you notice a difference in the highs as well? On my Maggies, the adcom is almost too detailed (grainy?) while my carver sounded pretty darn good.

heiney9

ben62670 wrote:

Soft music sounds real nice on it. like Alison Krause, but you stick dire straits in there Money for nothing (not that it is my favorite song but it sure is a good test song) the Sunfire falls flat on its face. Muddy/smeared sounding. Anyone want to buy a Sunfire?

Ben

I had a feeling about this when you said you were getting the Sunfire. After doing some recent comparo's with my Adcom it won't be leaving me anytime soon. The 585 and 565 mono's are stellar amps and I think people forget that. Also the 535, 545 and 555 are still very hard to top even 18-20 years later.

No doubt Sunfire is good stuff, but head to head they fall a bit short. And I agree about these "new" effecient designs and trick power supply's, etc. They just don't get the job done!!

H9

heiney9

ben62670 wrote:

Someone here stated that it would be more of a lateral move than an upgrade. Ben

That was me. I don't like the new school switching high effecieny designed amps. They just don't have the finesse, detail, punch and bottom end of a simple well designed bi-polar amp.

I listened to some Outlaws awhile ago and quickly turned them off.........yuck!!!

H9

Skynut

ben62670 wrote:

the Sunfire falls flat on its face. Muddy/smeared sounding. Anyone want to buy a Sunfire?

Ben

I used to.:(

sickicw

ben62670 wrote:

I just wouldn't want to pretend that I love this Amp to sell it. In all fairness (I guess) I am pushing speakers that are rated at 1000w each.
Ben

What speakers are thoes?

ben62670

jdhdiggs wrote:

Did you notice a difference in the highs as well? On my Maggies, the adcom is almost too detailed (grainy?) while my carver sounded pretty darn good.

I had a thought of Bi amping with the Sunfire on the tweets, and surrounds. It is smooth. You can really hear the breaths nicely in singing, but the punch just isn't there. With the SL tweets the Adcom was kinda fatiguing. I will have to experiment with that later. As I type I'm thinking that the symbol clashes weren't really forward either. If you go to a club and listen to say a Sax, or a drum there is a strong sharpness that is there. With the Sunfire its smoothed out. My GF says I am like Monk (on TV) with my speakers. Moving them around, changing parts, cables. I want to hear extreme details in my music. Maybe I'm to critical? No! I have the silk RDO's now, new caps, resistors, speaker cables, IC cables. I just have reached a point where I have become comfortable numb. Oops flashback there. J/K I can hear details that I have never heard before in my music. So I am very critical.

ben62670

heiney9 wrote:

I had a feeling about this when you said you were getting the Sunfire. After doing some recent comparo's with my Adcom it won't be leaving me anytime soon. The 585 and 565 mono's are stellar amps and I think people forget that. Also the 535, 545 and 555 are still very hard to top even 18-20 years later.

No doubt Sunfire is good stuff, but head to head they fall a bit short. And I agree about these "new" effecient designs and trick power supply's, etc. They just don't get the job done!!

H9

I have utmost respect for the GFA-555. It sounds very close to the 585, and it is bridgeable to 850@4ohms! clean, and tight! Tight is the key word here.

ben62670

sickicw wrote:

What speakers are thoes?

SDA-SRS

heiney9

ben62670 wrote:

I have utmost respect for the GFA-555. It sounds very close to the 585, and it is bridgeable to 850@4ohms! clean, and tight! Tight is the key word here.

Yep, I do too, but the 585 is a better as is the design (much more complicated atleast from the tech's POV) than the 555. Some say it's unneccesarilly complicated. However the 555, is 85% of the 585. Running a stereo amp bridged is usually not a great senario, the same holds true for the 555 even though it's pretty bullit proof.

H9

ben62670

heiney9 wrote:

Yep, I do too, but the 585 is a better as is the design (much more complicated atleast from the tech's POV) than the 555. Some say it's unneccesarilly complicated. However the 555, is 85% of the 585. Running a stereo amp bridged is usually not a great senario, the same holds true for the 555 even though it's pretty bullit proof.

H9

Yep Yep and Yep:) I had to replace all the leaky caps on the input board, and some resistors:eek: The input boards on a 585 are much more complicated than the 555.

Lowell_M

ben62670 wrote:

Yep Yep and Yep:) I had to replace all the leaky caps on the input board, and some resistors:eek: The input boards on a 585 are much more complicated than the 555.

I have a 555, which is my first excursion into separates. How do you know when things need to be repaired. What are the symptoms?

no worries with mine..I think. damn things sounds awesome!

heiney9

a_mattison wrote:

I have a 555, which is my first excursion into separates. How do you know when things need to be repaired. What are the symptoms?

no worries with mine..I think. damn things sounds awesome!

Usually a visual inspection might give an indication, but a change in sound is waht usually gives it away, especially something serious. Static, very high levels of hiss, distortion lights going on prematurely, one channel softer/louder than another. If it sounds great probably not a problem. For me I can tell right away usually if something just isn't right.

That Adcom integrated I have has issues and it's apparent when I listen, but not to anyone else, it seems. Symptoms are one channel gets intermittently static/cuts out and the bypass caps on the right channel discharge immediatley upon shut down as well as the power lindicator light staying on forever after power off. I think the bypass caps are bad or something else.

heiney9

:eek: damn double post :eek:

heiney9

ben62670 wrote:

Yep Yep and Yep:) The input boards on a 585 are much more complicated than the 555.

You can thank Victor Campos and Walt Yung for that . That was their design.

heiney9

ben62670 wrote:

Yep Yep and Yep:) I had to replace all the leaky caps on the input board, and some resistors:eek: The input boards on a 585 are much more complicated than the 555.

Also Adcom got a bad run (outside source) of bypass caps that went into both the 565 mono's and 585 and will invariably fail at some point. The problem is getting all the electrolytic off of the driver boards.............and that's a major overhaul. It has to be done absolutely correctly or the amp will forever have issues. Not too mention the parts it takes with it.

H9

DarqueKnight

ben62670 wrote:

the Sunfire falls flat on its face. Muddy/smeared sounding. Anyone want to buy a Sunfire?

I know some tube enthusiasts that might be interested.

heiney9

DarqueKnight wrote:

I know some tube enthusiasts that might be interested.

:cool: ....LOL....too funny!!!

ben62670

H9 what do you think of the GFA-5800, 5802 compared to the 585?
Thanks
Ben

heiney9

ben62670 wrote:

H9 what do you think of the GFA-5800, 5802 compared to the 585?
Thanks
Ben

Really apples and oranges. The 585 is old school, designed by Victor Campos and Walt Jung using bi-polar tranny's. The 5800 is more similar to the 585 than the 5802. The fans in the 5800 can give some trouble. The 5802 is a Nelson Pass design and has both muscle and ultimately more finesse than the 585 and 5800 (although a lesser degree in the case of the 5800).

If I had the choice between either of the (3) I'd lean toward the 5802. The combo of the GFA-5802 and GFP-750 is very very tough to beat for less than $6-8K, IMHO.

ben62670

heiney9 wrote:

Really apples and oranges. The 585 is old school, designed by Victor Campos and Walt Jung using bi-polar tranny's. The 5800 is more similar to the 585 than the 5802. The fans in the 5800 can give some trouble. The 5802 is a Nelson Pass design and has both muscle and ultimately more finesse than the 585 and 5800 (although a lesser degree in the case of the 5800).

If I had the choice between either of the (3) I'd lean toward the 5802. The combo of the GFA-5802 and GFP-750 is very very tough to beat for less than $6-8K, IMHO.

I should get your p# and let you know my latest plan. Wild SDA speaker design in the upcoming future.
Ben

cfrizz

Well Ben, you said it all right here. It doesn't sound like your Adcom. Well since it isn't an Adcom it shouldn't sound like it.

You went looking for the limits of both amps & you found them. Everything does have a limit, including your ears. So the Sunfire backed down before the Adcom, so what?

Since NO ONE is going to be constantly listening at the levels you were listening to, BOTH amps should be just fine for the vast majority of the time. Pleasant to your ears & less strenuous on your gear.

Try to keep this in mind & perspective Skynut. Both amps are solid products different but solid.

ben62670 wrote:

Thats my impression of it when you get on the gas. It does sound nice, smooth, runs extremely cool, but hard hitting... no. The bass is there. Its just not like my Adcom. Ben