Adcom amp & pre or Nad/Fidelity intergrated

NJPOLKER · March 2007

I have decided to go the two channel route, for now anyway. Here is what I am looking at, Adcom 555MKII pre-amp with a 5500 amp (both $750.) however I have looked at integrated amps Nad C372($750) and Musical Fidelity A30 ($800) I know the Adcom package will give me 200 wpc and the Nad & MF are @150wpc but not sure if thats really going to matter.
Any suggestions on which route I should go?
I am also upgrading the tweeters on my SDA2a's with the RDO194-1's

Thanks
Drew

F1nut · March 2007

FYI, it's integrated (only one "r") and Musical Fidelity A300.

Now that we've got those matters settled, can you demo any of those pieces before you buy?

NJPOLKER · March 2007

I'll pay more attention next time!! I went back and fixed them and hope you feel better now.
I looked at these items on Audiogon so doubt I'll be able to demo any of them.

hoosier21 · March 2007

they all three sound different, my view of the three, pick your flavor:
tilted toward bright - Adcom combo
Medium - NAD C372
Warmest - Musical Fidelity A300

adcom565 · March 2007

I general you can say I am a ADCOM fan for over 13 years. All of my amps are around 10 plus yrs old and still sound as good as new. Personally I love my GFA555. The 555 preamp is very nice, great for the money. I have heard the NAD stuff in the past. Good stuff as well, I would concider going with them as well. But I have been more than pleased with the ADCOMs. Great power, should be able to drive most speakers. You can also bridge them if you get two. Not sure about the other brand you mentioned. ADCOM 555 is on Ebay frequently. Look for the GFA55511. GTP 450 and GTP500 are good PreAmps as well, plus you get a tuner. Good Luck.

Lowell_M · March 2007

I've decided in browsing through this thread that my new personal goal is not to say anything that will cause me to become quoted in F1Nut's signature.

So...here goes...... The adcoms that I have heard tend to be neutral to a little warm to my ears. I love my GFA555. Great sound/dollar. hard to beat.

Try like hell to get your ears on the gear you are interested in during the same listening session. That's how I ended up with my 555.

F1nut · March 2007

LOL......thanks, but I felt just fine to begin with. Just thought it would help others help you with your questions.

Anyway, since you can't demo any of them, I agree with Hoosier21's assessment. Worse case, you can always resell it on Audiogon if it's not your cup of tea.

F1nut · March 2007

a_mattison wrote:

I've decided in browsing through this thread that my new personal goal is not to say anything that will cause me to become quoted in F1Nut's signature.

You know, that quote just might make it to my sig.

reeltrouble1 · March 2007

NAD or Musical Fidelity.

Of course, Nobody likes their baby called ugly.

RT1

ben62670 · March 2007

the RDO tweets with adcom is great sounding, and bang for buck. If you had very bright speaks like klipsch with horns I'd say the Adcom might be too bright for your taste.

shack · March 2007

reeltrouble1 wrote:

NAD or Musical Fidelity.

I gotta agree with big Ted on this one. I really like NAD gear and the C372 is a very nice integrated. Musical Fidelty makes very good gear as well. In this case it is really personal preferrence.

hearingimpared · March 2007

a_mattison wrote:

I've decided in browsing through this thread that my new personal goal is not to say anything that will cause me to become quoted in F1Nut's signature.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaa Heck I'm trying to get into that wall of shame LOL!!! I'm shocked that I haven't said anything stupid enough or point blank enough to make it yet with all the friggin posts I've tallied up.

hearingimpared · March 2007

NJPOLKER wrote:

I have decided to go the two channel route, for now anyway. Here is what I am looking at, Adcom 555MKII pre-amp with a 5500 amp (both $750.) however I have looked at integrated amps Nad C372($750) and Musical Fidelity A30 ($800) I know the Adcom package will give me 200 wpc and the Nad & MF are @150wpc but not sure if thats really going to matter.
Any suggestions on which route I should go?
I am also upgrading the tweeters on my SDA2a's with the RDO194-1's

Thanks
Drew

I've owned NAD 2200s and 2200 PEs in the past paired with SRSs and they were awesome. However, I have Adcom 565s (they do have Musical Concepts mods on it so the brightness factor is not an issue) paired with 1.2 TLs and they rock. However, I just recently bi-amp's the tweeters with a Parasound amp and I noticed right away that the Adcoms did have an edge to them that is now gone because of the smoothness of the Parasound so if you are looking to go on the warm side especially if all you are going to be playing are CDs then I would go with the NAD. If you are a vinyl junkie then the power and possible brighness with the Adcom won't be as noticable or even an issue.

EDIT: I originally wrote Musical Fidelity above and corrected it to read Musical Concepts.

heiney9 · March 2007

It's typical for people to dislike Adcom these days. You'll find very little love around here. The flavor on this board is Rotel, Parasound, NAD and Outlaw in that order. I've heard 3 of the 4 and I still choose Adcom by a wide margin. I don't know who in the hell started the whole "Adcom is bright" description, but I find them to be very revealing especially of a poor source. They have a very solid bottom end and the midrange is exceptional. They are built to last 2 lifetimes and because they were the best selling amplifier in history there are many around which tends to keep their price down.

Go back and re-read Anthony Cordesman review of the original Adcom. They are very good amps that deserve to be in the company of most components mentioned around here. The pre's are a bit less than audiophile quality with the exception of the fine GFP-750. After hearing a Parasound pre recently I'm not so sure the Adcom pre's are all that bad.

BUT, it all comes down to personal preference. You can't go wrong with either of the 3 choices. Of the 3 the Musical Fidelity is probably the most laid back that may or may not suit you or your other choice of gear you run with it.

Also I agree Klipsch and Adcom don't have great synergy. But then I'm pretty sure any SS amp with Klipsch doesn't have great synergy.

My .02c

hearingimpared · March 2007

heiney9 wrote:

It's typical for people to dislike Adcom these days. You'll find very little love around here. The flavor on this board is Rotel, Parasound, NAD and Outlaw in that order.

I'm not too sure about that Brother. . . when I asked for advise on what to drive my 1.2TLs with back in August an overwhelming number of people advised me to jump on the Adcoms. . .NADs were a close second. I love my Adcoms and wouldn't trade them for the world (well not yet atleast) but I do know that the Musical Concepts upgrades do take brightness out of the mix. That is their claim to fame for the upgrades in the first place. I never thought they were grainy or bright. I know that I just recently bi-amp'd with Parasounds on the highs and where I noticed the most improvement was with CDs. . . there is an edginess that was always present that not even the Timbre DAC totally removed that is not there now since I placed the Parasound amp in the mix. I haven't done enough of my evaluation yet to make any real claims here yet but I did notice that change right away.

With LPs and SACDs that improvement wasn't as noticable which leads me to believe that of course that the nature of CDs in general is to be bright and edgy and thus the Adcoms were just reproducing what is fed them which is a very good thing in my book.

EDIT: I said Musical Fidelity above and corrected it to Musical Concepts.

ben62670 · March 2007

I love my Adcoms too

All though I have been loking at sunfire, and B&K. Much more money:(

heiney9 · March 2007

Still using the sl3000's in the TL's? I personally don't hear any graininess or consider Adcom to be bright. It could get unbearable with my old RTA's and the sl2000 tweet, but that wasn't nec the fault of the Adcom. If you have to purchase equipment to tame a certain defficiency then perhaps the synergy as a whole is a bit off. Hell I could swap cables and change the dynamics of the system.

My only point is that there are other more laid back amps, but just because those amps are characterized as laid back doesn't automatically translate to the Adcom being bright. In the end it's all about system synergy and neither of the 3 are going to be a good fit for EVERY situation.

And Hearingimpared you have an awesome set-up, I would love to have the 565's.

Deadof_knight · March 2007

Adcom or integrated hmmmmmmm ADCOM!!!!

mldennison · March 2007

+1 for the Adcom GFA555. For <$400 used, I think they are a steal!

Lowell_M · March 2007

F1nut wrote:

You know, that quote just might make it to my sig.

:cool: :cool: :cool:

hearingimpared · March 2007

heiney9 wrote:

In the end it's all about system synergy and neither of the 3 are going to be a good fit for EVERY situation.

And Hearingimpared you have an awesome set-up, I would love to have the 565's.

Thanks H9, you said it perfectly. . ."synergy" is the key word.

reeltrouble1 · March 2007

Anybody selling I love Adcom T-shirts, RT1 will take two XXL.

Many like Adcom products. They are certainly a company someone should try out, like NAD they offer high current amplifiers at a very reasonable price. NAD and Adcom go about things a bit differently check them out. The goal of MF folks is to build neutral gear. I most certainly put a number of the MF products into the hi-fi class of audio gear. Other companies here have support like B&K and Carver, its all good stuff, I am talking differences in good equipment. The amp is just one part of the system.

I just really dig the NAD big green button.

RT1

Lowell_M · March 2007

Sign me up for an ADCOM lover shirt. large for me please. Maybe we can submit this order along with the "Cables Don't Matter"-John K. T-shirts.

shack · March 2007

I really like my NADs.

Lowell_M · March 2007

shack wrote:

I really like my NADs.

another one for the T-shirt order.:)

snow · March 2007

shack wrote:

I really like my NADs.

Agreed they are nice to have around, Even though I havent had a chance to put mine to use in a little while. its comforting to know there still there in case.:D P.S this should qualify for F1nuts sig lmao. REGARDS SNOW

heiney9 · March 2007

A "John K" reference on the front and an I "heart" Adcom on the back. That would be a great T-shirt. Too bad Adcom has sorta gone down the tubes a bit in the past 5-7 years. Still a good product, but IMHO, not as nice as the original stuff.

I know Adcom is not the greatest thing since sliced bread and that the other companies out are just as good and perhaps may better integrate in certain systems. I was just putting a "shout out" for Adcom, like many others do here for their particular flavor.

Again I can't stress enough the overall system SYNERGY!!!!

hearingimpared · March 2007

heiney9 wrote:

A "John K" reference on the front and an I "heart" Adcom on the back. That would be a great T-shirt. Too bad Adcom has sorta gone down the tubes a bit in the past 5-7 years. Still a good product, but IMHO, not as nice as the original stuff.

I know Adcom is not the greatest thing since sliced bread and that the other companies out are just as good and perhaps may better integrate in certain systems. I was just putting a "shout out" for Adcom, like many others do here for their particular flavor.

Again I can't stress enough the overall system SYNERGY!!!!

I'm not speaking from experience here, it is definetely here say but Adcom started going down the toilet when they moved from North Jersey to AZ. The way I understand it the really good engineers they had quite cause they didn't want to move out West.

The experience I do have with Adcom is that their customer service rep (that is correct singular) who I will not name here is not very competent. I have to call several times to get an answer as to whether it was safe to strap the 565 mono blocks together and the poor guy never even heard of Musical Concepts???. I wasn't impressed.

reeltrouble1 · March 2007

shack wrote:

I really like my NADs.

Push the Green Button on them and watch what happens.:eek:

RT1

Adcom amp & pre or Nad/Fidelity intergrated

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