Adcom GFA-555 II or GFA-555

mikeflores

Is there a reason to get a GFA-555 II over a GFA-555? Should you pay a more for a GFA-555 II? I have found a GFA-555 in good condition but if a GFA-555 II is better I will keep looking.

Thanks

heiney9

Amazing what a 30 second search can do

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53981&highlight=adcom+555

BTW, welcome to Club Polk. This has been discussed many times before.

H9

mikeflores

Thanks!

I will get the MKI.

heiney9

mikeflores wrote: »

Thanks!

I will get the MKI.

Good luck, what's the rest of your system?

vonnie123

You wont go wrong with either one: GFA 555 or 555 MKII. Anything Adcom is pretty well built. Bought my GFA 555 version 1 in fall of 1988 and she is still going strong. It has plenty of juice and is now running two sets of Polk RM 8000Ts and one set of RTi6s flawlessly through an Adcom speaker selector. There is some excellent detailed information in the older thread to describe the differences. Good luck.

engtaz

I love the Adcom I got.

mikeflores

I am putting together my first HT. I am getting the room ready now and collecting the pieces. I think I am going with a Onkyo SR805 to go along with my Polk RTi10, CSi5 center, FXi3 Surrounds, HSU VTS2 sub and Sony KLD-52W3000. Hope to have the room ready soon so I can unbox all the new toys.

From the info I have read here, I want to try a Adcom GFA-555 Amp with the RTi10s if I can find a good deal.

ben62670

Welcome to Club Polk.
I have owned 5 different Adcom's. Out of the five 2 were old school. The GFA-555, and the GFA-585 have a more neutral sound than the newer ones. I am not saying not to get a newer one if you find a good deal on one. Without hearing them side by side I think you would be hard pressed to notice a difference. The down side of the older ones is that they are older. A 555 with the RTi10's is great from what I hear.

Ben

thejck

make sure you listen to it before you buy it.
I was looking at one that a guy had on sale on CL. and he bought it over to my house and one of the channels were bad. He has it sitting unused for a period of time and I guess that caused the capacitors to dry out or something.

however i researched them and its a great amp to buy. i wish I could have gotten a chance to listen to them in full glory.

heiney9

mikeflores wrote: »

I am putting together my first HT. I am getting the room ready now and collecting the pieces. I think I am going with a Onkyo SR805 to go along with my Polk RTi10, CSi5 center, FXi3 Surrounds, HSU VTS2 sub and Sony KLD-52W3000. Hope to have the room ready soon so I can unbox all the new toys.

From the info I have read here, I want to try a Adcom GFA-555 Amp with the RTi10s if I can find a good deal.

Sounds like a solid plan, good luck.

H9

P.s. You do realize this is just the beginning of your "audio" habit

MKZ

thejck wrote: »

make sure you listen to it before you buy it.
I was looking at one that a guy had on sale on CL. and he bought it over to my house and one of the channels were bad. He has it sitting unused for a period of time and I guess that caused the capacitors to dry out or something.

however i researched them and its a great amp to buy. i wish I could have gotten a chance to listen to them in full glory.

Same story with my 5400. I got 5500 from Tom here and I love it. I am using 5400 for Center now. Good Luck!

mikeflores

mikeflores wrote: »

I am putting together my first HT. I am getting the room ready now and collecting the pieces. I think I am going with a Onkyo SR805 to go along with my Polk RTi10, CSi5 center, FXi3 Surrounds, HSU VTS2 sub and Sony KLD-52W3000. Hope to have the room ready soon so I can unbox all the new toys.

From the info I have read here, I want to try a Adcom GFA-555 Amp with the RTi10s if I can find a good deal.

This project has taken a lot longer than I had planned, but it has been fun. I purchased the Adcom 555 but remove it from the system because I'm getting speaker pop when the AVR is changing inputs or when I power on the Adcom. Is this because the 555’s input is direct coupled? Is this normal and something I will have to get use to or can this damage my speakers? I researched and found I could correct this by adding a decoupling cap on the Amp’s input or build a high pass filter pass-through box that would connect between the AVR and AMP, both suggestions defeat the original design, correct?

ben62670

Mine all popped when I turn them on. The question is why do you shut them off? I wouldn't modify it. If everything is off what sequence do you turn it on in?

mikeflores

When I have it in the system I plan to power on the Adcom first or leave it on. But my main concern is I have speaker pop when I change or power on any input device. I have a dvd and blu-ray player hooked up to the AVR. The dvd player is an older sony 5 disk player that I also play cd's on, i get speaker pop when I skip to the next disk. I am concerned about damaging my speaker, but if you know the speaker pop is not a problem, I will test some more to see if I like the Adcom. Thanks

Music Joe

If you elect to leave your amp powered then also leave the preamp(avr in this case) on and turned down.

If the amp is on...or on before the preamp is turned on...you'll likely get a nasty pop. The amp is just amplifying any upstream noise fed to its input...if the noise of switching on the preamp with volume fully down causes a loud pop I would say leave the amp off till the preamp is powered on first.

If you're cd player isn't digitally muting, usually just a small tick or pop between tracks or disc change, it should be much lower in level then any turn on pop. If it's loud then it should be looked into..