Adcom GFA-545 - Modify or Move On?

sorry for the late reply on this ... can I still make a suggestion?

Swap your speaker cable out. On more than one system (both NAD, actually) more liquid everything and softer highs came when I swapped my home-brew anti-cables with Audioquest Type 4.

I have a 6' pair I can lend you if you want to check them out :) Meanwhile, I'm looking at 545s and 535's for myself, as well as B&K stuff from the same era.

Have fun!

Capital,

The 545 is a decent amp, but the mark 2 version has the better power supplies and would be worth seeking out over the mark 1 versions.

In either case, both suffer from some grain on the top end. I have worked a number of the Adcom amps; all improve greatly with cap upgrades, bypass caps on the power supply, soft recovery bridges, etc; and in the case of the GFA 555 mk2 and others, tossing out those chrome plated steel buss bars and replacing them with copper or brass makes a huge sonic improvement.

The studio 100s are pretty open and clear on the top and will show any grain coming through from the amp. This can easily translate into listener fatigue. Same can be true with stock Parasound amps and Paradigm speakers.

As another poster pointed out, you can have musical concepts upgrade them for you, but you're likely not to get that money back if you ever sell the amps.

I would suggest doing the cap upgrades yourself; the cost of the parts will be less than 15 bucks. Just will require some of your time to install them.

It appears most of your source material is CD, so any cd graininess is increased additionally as it passes through the amp.

I modified a 545 Mk2 for a friend. Like you, he was interested in replacement options. After the upgrade was complete, he could not have been happier with the sound.

The paradigms are not difficult speakers to drive, so I would think that a pair of modified 545's might really be the ticket.

good luck.

I will definitely look into changing the cables.

Johnss, I pulled off the lid to one of the Adcoms. There are 4 very large capacitors marked "63v 10000", they are blue in color. I'm assuming these are the ones that need to be replaced?

I was just listening to Elvis Costello and the Allman Brothers Live at Fillmore East. My main qualm is brightness at this point. I feel if I can get the highs under control I'll be happy with the system until budget allows an amplifier upgrade (I just bought my first house and am getting married in 5 weeks so that could be a while, I know, woe is me).

The blue caps don't need to be replaced. those are the ones you want to bypass with the film caps. 63V suggests that the rail voltage is around 50 VDC, so any 100 Volt rated film adn foil cap should work.

john I am in the process of updating this amp is there any chance you have more info about the nuts and bolts of it ?
if so it would be great to hear from you
thanks
aquaverde2atgmail.com