Adcom Vs Rotel

If Macintosh is the answer what was the question? The great advantage of Rotel is that they actually make things themselves while Adcom is a marketing company only who contract out all manufacturing. The well known 555 amp was suppose to have been made by at least 3 different companies with varying results. On the other hand many of their products have been quite good. It boils down to a question of choosing between two individual components, not between two companies.

I was a former B&W dealer[and Krell], I do not think Mac is a good match. B&W need an amp that really get hold of a speaker and the transformers that Mac uses don't help. A friend was using a 402 with matching Mac pre on Wilson Sasha speakers, which is another speaker that makes strong demands on amps. After hearing my Musical Fidelity M3 on them he sold the Macs, the big Musical Fidelity integrated amps are bargains, there was one like mine on here for $2200 recently, may still be. Will out power any Mac I have ever heard, weighs 90lb and will put out way over its rating into low inpeadences a la Krell. The new Krell 300 integrated is another very good amp at a very reasonable price.

Its common knowledge, SOME of the 555s were very good, some were not. Many companies design a product and then have it made by a company specializing in that product; this is not always a bad thing. The Japanese company Jelco has only recently become well known despite making high quality tonearms for decades for other companies to be sold under their names. The problem is that sometimes a company will turn to manufacture A to make a product; after it is established it will then turn to manufacture B to make a cheaper version without changing the appearance or model number. This is what I had heard was the case with the 555 but I have not compared them myself. NAD is another respected marketer, who, so far as I am aware, does the design work and contracts out the actual construction to others. At least that was the case in the days when I was one of their dealers. But since so much of the industry has moved to the Far East and so many famous brands have been juggled between companies I will not pretend to have an exact knowledge of who is making what these days.