Adcom 5400 or HK Citation 24 for RT1000p?

ViperZ

I am contemplating of selling one of my amps, and not sure which one to keep.

The amp will be used with my mains (RT1000p).

Adcom GFA-5400 is MOSFET based amp. Sound is very clear, I'd even say metallic.

Harman Kardon Citation 24 is BJT based amp. Sound is smooth as silk, very soft.

Any opinions on which amp would fit my mains better? I am kind of used to the Adcom, but got hesitant after listening to HK.

Dennis Gardner

The HK is a great match for the slightly hot tweeter of the RT lineup. I have run my RTi70s with the HK 24 and really liked it. With SDAs or the LSi line, it was too soft for my tastes though.

ViperZ

Spent most of my evening yesterday listening to those amp.. Switching between them.. Now hooked up one of them on the left channel, another on the right.. Still tough to compare with stereo sound. They do sound very different .

BJT vs. MOSFET

Build quality is very similar

Power output is slightly higher with Adcom

Both are 4-Ohm stable easily

THD is slightly better in HK

(HK weighs in at 15 kg vs 12 kg for Adcom :cool: )

Arrrgh!

ViperZ

Does anybody know what Class the HK amplifier is?

I found that Adcom is Class A (Class A/B at high(er) power).

I also found out that HK Citation 22 and 24 were built by Marantz for Harman Kardon. Funny...

Still can't pick one over another. Both have completely separated channels. Adcom advertises that even secondary windings in the toroidal transformer are separated. HK does not say much about transformer, but they claim that both channels are fully separated from pre-amp inputs to speaker outputs...