New Adcom GFA-555 se - Special Edition

Stonedeaf,
Sounds like a nice system.
I had the Benchmark DAC and used it as a preamp directly into a tube poweramp. Wonderful!
Have you considered feeding your CDP into the Benchmark's coaxial input and the Sony tuner into the Benchmark's optical input. Then the Benchmarks output into your 555SE's to your B&Ws.
Minimizing the lower-end gear and having a better sound.

Have a old LG CRT hidef TV that can only feed audio out via Toslink - this goes into the Marantz pre-pro - which gets me a volume control and mute button - something my Benchmark doesn't offer via remote.Very focused on the best LP playback i can afford -CD comes next and the radio and TV/DVD sound is not real important to me.

Has anyone auditioned the 555SE versus the 555II or the original 555?

The orig. 555 II sold a lot of copies, and was a good value for the dollar. having said that, it would still just about tear your ears off with its harsh high frequency response.

I have worked on a number of the 555 II. They can be made to sound pretty good, but takes considerable work and a lot of parts........As others have mentioned, there are a number of SS amps of equiv. power that have much better long term listening characteristics.

Like a lot of people, I owned one of these for years and they were a great buy used but there is so much better equipment on the market for the same price now.