6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
A very good successor to the original legendary GFA 555 series, but not perfect.
Date of Review: Jun 4, 2008
The Bottom Line: A serious amp that generates serious sound and can drive pretty much anything. It is a real performer and for the money cannot be beat. Great with planar speakers !
Whether you are familiar with Adcom or not you should know that the predecessor to the Adcom GFA 5500; the original GFA 555 was "the legend" that first put Adcom firmly on the map as far as offering outstanding performance with a very respectable price. The original GFA 555; designed by Audio legend Nelson Pass; was an extremely well reviewed amplifier that was raved about by Stereophile magazine and went on to sell thousands upon thousands of units around North America. Eventually the original GFA 555 gave way to the GFA 555 Mk.2 and ultimately the latest generation in the lineage is the GFA 5500.
It should be noted that unlike the bi-polar topology based GFA 555 and 555 Mark 2 the GFA 5500 is a MOSFET based amplifier and as such is ideal for the latest home theatre and other "digital" audio based mediums that require a faster transient response. Having said that; while most MOSFET based amplifiers make do with smaller power supplies; in this regard Adcom sticks to it's roots and still uses a massive toroidal power supply and oversized caps to store that power. The outcome is great sonic stability that also easily meets the peak transients you find so often in Home Theater applications. In fact Adcom boasts 1.7db of dynamic headroom even at a challenging 4ohm level ! All of this emphases on bombproof construction and powerful heavy duty components leaves you with a unit that tips the scales at nearly 45 lbs – compare that to the NAD C272 amplifier that weighs in at just 25lbs !
I have been a long term owner of the GFA 555 series and was very keen to try out the GFA 5500 and can say that I was not disappointed. The GFA series has always produced a fairly neutral and musical sound. Unlike other amplifiers the tend to add their own coloration; the Adcoms have always done an admirable job at remaining more neutral; and thus more musical as you are hearing the music more as it was originally recorded. This may sound like a simple concept; however it becomes very difficult to achieve when you are getting into larger amps such as the 200 watts/channel GFA 5500. I definitely noticed the speed of the attack and overall presence to be a tad greater on the 5500 when compared to the older 555 series. I would equate most of this to MOST based circuits.
Overall the sound is very smooth and still has the great Adcom soundstage that the GFA have become famous for. I will say that the 5500 is a tad brighter sounding than the original 555 series and again I would attribute that more to the MOSFET design; fortunately the front end is still Class A so the subtle sonic details remains very refined. I was also pleased to see that the 5500 offers top quality gold plated connectors and good sized versatile five way binding posts for connecting your speakers. Also nice too see that Adcom has retained the original "subtle" styling that does not look out of date every 3 or 4 years.
Dislikes ? I was very disappointed that Adcom no longer offers the 5500 series in a bridgeable format. Many of us liked our 555's so much that we could add a second one and run them bridged; unfortunately this is no longer the case. I was also very disappointed to see a fixed and not removable power cord; in this price range that is a very glaring oversight. Lastly there is also no remote on/off "trigger" switches; another glaring oversight in the price range.
Summary. The Adcom remains an impressive performer and as always it is particularly well suited to driving difficult speakers. Planars; such as Magnepan's; are very,very well suited to the Adcom GFA 5500 series. On the whole it remains an impressive amp; however Adcom needs to better keep up with some of the latest details. Performance is still great; but had there been a bit more flexibility courtesy of a removable power cord and an ability to operate bridged I would have given the 5500 a 10 out of 10. As it is I would give it an 8 out of 10. The very last generation GFA 555 Mark 2 that I own has both the ability to be bridged and has a removable power cord; it still get's a 10/10 rating in my books and is the better of the two amps; in spite of being older.
