Adcom amps

powerlord

I'm looking at a few of these right now,a couple 5802's or a 5500.I will be buying one amp for my mains and let my reciever take care of the surrounds.For the money these have quite a bit of power.Anyone have any experience with these and can I go wrong here?

danger boy

first off.. everyone in here has their "favorite" brand of amp... i do, he does, she does.. etc. for good bang for your buck... the Adcom amps will serve you well.. if you're looking to save some bucks... you may want to consider buying used Adcom amps.. if you buy new... Adcom has a trade in program where you can upgrade to another one of their amps later on down the road. not a bad deal huh?

have a nice day!

powerlord

Yeah I did a search and the comments on these amps were pointing toward the mediocre side,I'm just getting my feet wet in the seperates and don't want to spend an extreme amount of change,I was looking on the bay and found pretty reasonable Carver and Adcoms.

snow

powerlord wrote:

Yeah I did a search and the comments on these amps were pointing toward the mediocre side,I'm just getting my feet wet in the seperates and don't want to spend an extreme amount of change,I was looking on the bay and found pretty reasonable Carver and Adcoms.

Well I dont know what they were comparing them to but adcom amps are not mediocre by most standards lol. I guess pretty much anything can be called that if you compared them to something that costs a lot more. But i think that as bang for the buck there hard to beat if you buy used. plus you can always upgrade if you dont like it. Theres always someone looking for an adcom GFA-555 GFA-565 mono block etc. wish I had a hundred of them. I know i could always sell them.there like money in the bank. REGARDS SNOW

ben62670

powerlord wrote:

Yeah I did a search and the comments on these amps were pointing toward the mediocre side,I'm just getting my feet wet in the seperates and don't want to spend an extreme amount of change,I was looking on the bay and found pretty reasonable Carver and Adcoms.

Wanna buy a sunfire?

engtaz

go for it they are great amps and great sounding.

engtaz

reeltrouble1

there OK. Many others around the same price to choose from, everyone has to start somewhere, just get something with high current to start with. The amp is just one part of the entire system.

RT1

powerlord

ben62670 wrote:

Wanna buy a sunfire?

My budget is around the $600 level right now,I would love a Sunfire for a starter.I've heard my RSF1000's will really wake up when pushed with more than 200 wpc clean:)

hearingimpared

Look for Adcom's with Musical Concepts mods/upgrades on them. The don't pull in that much more than the stock Adcoms but the difference with the mods are far from mediocre.

powerlord

How about Hafler or audio research?Saw a Hafler that kicks out 325 wpc at 8ohm,are these on the up?

snow

powerlord wrote:

How about Hafler or audio research?Saw a Hafler that kicks out 325 wpc at 8ohm,are these on the up?

there is one hafler the XL600 that puts out 305 wpc into 8 ohms which is a pretty nice amp for the money that it usally commands . $450.00 or so average. Audio research makes very nice stuff but can be costly.


REGARDS SNOW

powerlord

I also spyed a Carver TFM-55X on the bay and was wondering how it stacked up to the adcoms.Shows quite a bit of power rating for such a light amp.

ben62670

Light amps = small or switching power supply, and small capacitors = waste of money. IMO

cfrizz

People rave about their Carver's & Sunfire's. I like not giving myself a hernia if I have to move it & it sounds great!

Like it or not, these lighter amps are most likely the future direction of amplification.

So go for it Powerlord.

powerlord

Wow, bold statement,I did a search here on the forum about Carver and most opinions were that it's great gear for the money,just didn't find anything on this amp

powerlord

Thanks cfrizz!

cfrizz

My pleasure Powerlord.

As you can see there is a HUGE difference of opinion when it comes to amplification. Some comes from knowledge, some comes from specs, some comes from elitism.

All of it is subjective, and as with every thing else in life there is a low end a middle end & a high end.

I try to stay in the middle recommending what I have personal knowledge of & what will give most mid hifiers the best bang for their buck and maximizing the improvements to their systems.

It's worked for me, I figure it can work for others as well.:)

powerlord

Yeah, mine is a budget limit,so I'm going to have to get what I can afford and I'm trying to be real careful with what I buy so that I'll be happy with my purchase.So far the reviews of the adcoms and Carvers are pretty good,I've also seen some budget Parasound amps,the Carvers would be ideal because of their room saving quality.It's pretty much hit and miss with used gear and being new to seperates I have virtually no idea of what I'm looking for,I'm basically going to listen to you guys on this as I have no resources to speak of where I live.CC,BB and Ultimate don't offer much in the real world amp advice dept.I appreciate your advice.And I'm sure I'm going to be hooked on seperates after my introduction to them after the night and day differences I hear about so much versus the reciever.

engtaz

Outlaw Audio makes good amps and budget friendly.

cfrizz

Here are a few good 2 channel amps.

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstran&1179711337
http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstran&1179436598
http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstran&1179852293

powerlord

Ya know frizz,a guy that owns a shop here and is an authorized Rotel dealer brought over a Rotel 1080 and we compared the sound from my reciever and he and I came to the conclusion that there wasn't enough difference to consider buying his amp,we then went to his house and we listened to the same amp on his smaller speakers and they were phenominal,I think his mains were Ascends or Ascents and they weren't martin logans,they were quite a bit smaller than my mains though.So he said I should look for something in the 300 plus wpc, thus the eyeballing of the Carvers.Supposedly my mains are juice hogs so the more the merrier some say about them.I could probably produce up to 700 bucks for my amp but no more.And thanks for the heads up there on the gon.

snow

powerlord wrote:

Wow, bold statement,I did a search here on the forum about Carver and most opinions were that it's great gear for the money,just didn't find anything on this amp

go here if you want info on the carver.
http://www.carveraudio.com/phpBB2/index.php

REGARDS SNOW

powerlord

Thanks Snow,I didn't even know that existed.

cfrizz

Wow! Happy hunting!:)

powerlord wrote:

Ya know frizz,a guy that owns a shop here and is an authorized Rotel dealer brought over a Rotel 1080 and we compared the sound from my reciever and he and I came to the conclusion that there wasn't enough difference to consider buying his amp,we then went to his house and we listened to the same amp on his smaller speakers and they were phenominal,I think his mains were Ascends or Ascents and they weren't martin logans,they were quite a bit smaller than my mains though.So he said I should look for something in the 300 plus wpc, thus the eyeballing of the Carvers.Supposedly my mains are juice hogs so the more the merrier some say about them.I could probably produce up to 700 bucks for my amp but no more.And thanks for the heads up there on the gon.

vonnie123

Adcoms are great amps. I have a 16 year old GFA-555 still providing great service.

F1nut

powerlord wrote:

Ya know frizz,a guy that owns a shop here and is an authorized Rotel dealer brought over a Rotel 1080 and we compared the sound from my reciever and he and I came to the conclusion that there wasn't enough difference to consider buying his amp,we then went to his house and we listened to the same amp on his smaller speakers and they were phenominal,I think his mains were Ascends or Ascents and they weren't martin logans,they were quite a bit smaller than my mains though.So he said I should look for something in the 300 plus wpc, thus the eyeballing of the Carvers.Supposedly my mains are juice hogs so the more the merrier some say about them.I could probably produce up to 700 bucks for my amp but no more.And thanks for the heads up there on the gon.

A few things to consider. You were still using your AVR as the pre amp, so that can be a limiting factor as to how much of a difference a power amp will make. Your AVR, speakers and the Rotel may have not had synergy while his set up did. WPC are not the end all. You could easily find that a 70 wpc amp sounds the best because it has synergy with your set up.

powerlord

Point taken F1nut,buying used gear could be a costly experiment though trying to find an amp that works.I have a guy coming over today to let me audition his adcom 5800 on my system,I'll let you know how it goes.And thanks again everyone for the schooling.

SLOCOOKN

I have a Carver TFM 55x and an ADCOM GFA 555 MK II. I am happy with both. You should be happy with them until you befriend someone with better equipment. This will happen and you will be on the hunt again.

Good luck,
Steve

heiney9

Powerlord,

All the advice given is solid as well as all the amps mentioned. If this is your first foray into seperates there have been several good ideas. What is your final goal? What F1 says, is VERY true, you will be limited by your AVR as a pre amp and eventualy by your source. If you are wanting to build a solid 2-ch system down the road then perhaps a little more care and research into what amp will suit you in the long haul. If you are looking to bump your power and improve the sound of your current set-up (HT) then the Carver or Adcom or Sunfire or Parasound.........is a great choice.

I am biased towards Adcom because they are plentiful, easy to re-sell, and sound great for the $$$. I've had a GFA-545 for 20 years and it still sounds great today. The 555 was the single most popular amp in history so there are a lot of them still around. They rarely break unless of severe stupidity. They are simple and straight forward designs that hold up and sound great.

Synergy is key as some will tell you Adcoms or Carver or Sunfire is this or that. Only way to know for sure is to buy something and try it out. I have my opinions on a lot of gear and it may or may not be what you or anyone else nec. agrees with. Be careful of taking too much opinion on the internet as fact.

As a side note I started to believe certain things(after using the amp for 20 years) about Adcom's (negative things) based on internet opinion, but when I actually did some comparison's I found, IMHO, that most of it was untrue (atleast in my system, in my room, with my other components).

Did I mention synergy between components is key.

Also read my sig...........that's what this hobby is all about.

heiney9

powerlord wrote:

Point taken F1nut,buying used gear could be a costly experiment though trying to find an amp that works.I have a guy coming over today to let me audition his adcom 5800 on my system,I'll let you know how it goes.And thanks again everyone for the schooling.

Please do. It's always refreshing to hear from someone who isn't jaded about this kind of thing. You are new to this seperates thing so you have very little if any preconcieved notions.

H9

ben62670

powerlord wrote:

Point taken F1nut,buying used gear could be a costly experiment though trying to find an amp that works.I have a guy coming over today to let me audition his adcom 5800 on my system,I'll let you know how it goes.And thanks again everyone for the schooling.

I think you are going to love that amp. If you have dire straits Brothers in arms put that on. Track 2, also track 5 to test for smoothness. If your not interested let me know if he wants to ship it.
Thanks
Ben