Adcom anyone?

[elevate]

My dad is considering an Audio Research or Mark Levinson amp to replace his Adcom GFA-555 amplifier. I'm thinking about encouraging my dad to do this so I can buy his Adcom and use it to power my Yorkvilles. Anybody ever use an Adcom amp for monitoring, or have any reasons why this would be a bad idea? The amp is rated at a modest 250 watts/channel @ 8 ohms.

[LooneyTunez]

The older Adcom's like the one your Dad may get rid of are excellent. It would do very well for monitoring/powering anything. I wouldn't worry about the modest power issue...you are less likely to blow a speaker with a high powered amp, vs a low powered one. Just don't crank it to the hilt.

I would go into what I think of those esoteric amps like the Levinson, but I digress.

[elevate]

I would go into what I think of those esoteric amps like the Levinson, but I digress.

Well, the rest of his stereo is a mixture of other esoteric brands (Magnepan, McIntosh, Nakamichi, etc...), and the GFA is really a rather weak amp to be powering the speakers he has. Personally, I prefer Audio Research to Levinson, but I couldn't ever justify spending $6,000 on amp.

[Phloodpants]

The GFA-55 is a great amp!

Just be careful when using it for pro-audio purposes. It's got all the balls of a pro amp, but not the protection circuitry. It has rail fuses on the power supply to the output transistors. These are famous for blowing out the instant you short the amp's outputs for even a fraction of a second.

I actually like that kind of protection circuitry. Very simple, but it's not cut out for pro-audio.