Aragon 4004 mk2 vs Adcom 555 mk2

You know some of us have to make ourselves feel better when we spend more on some of this stuff.Adcom 500 series cheap sound ..I doubt it! You will find the same transistors in some Rowlands,Pass,and Mark Levinsons. I guess they sound cheap too! Or you like paying for a face plate ..which I can't seem to hear to save my life.

Well Arthur I have owned the Mcintosh 7106 and compared to the 585 adcom. I think it would sound thin.Why ..well the Mac has a thickness to it.It sounds like Mcintosh tried to make this amp sound like tubes.Which was not a very good idea. The 585 Adcom is more transparent,better bass and voices are more distinguishable.This amplifier sounds like whatever you stick in the front of it.Nothing more.. nothing less.My 7106 was slow in comparison..maybe because of the current limitng circuits not really sure. The Mac retailed for 3500.00 the Adcom $1200.00 but you can't tell this when doing a fair comparison.The 7106 couldn't dream of handling the loads this amplifier can.A person has to decide if he wants a neutral amplifier or buy something to cover another flaw in his system.I'll take the neutral amplifier and work on the flaws.The highs are rolled off on some of the SS Macs.. this would give someone the impressions that another amplifier is bright.But before I point a finger at the amp I would look at my speakers and cables.Not bashing the the Mac but it is definitely not a neutral amplifier.

Kool39 it's cool everybodys got a favorite.I have no problem with that.
I have nothing against Aragon...so to each his own.I like some mosfets amplifiers , some bipolars and some tubes.But the bipolars are supposed to have 1/3 the distortion of mosfets.And to my ears this holds true.It's definetly a cleaner sound but I still love the Monarchys,and think their a great buy!Especially when paired with some fairly efficient speakers.

Happy Listening!

Jsujo...I think your on to something. My Mac did have the autoformers.Maybe this is what I was hearing.It was great for speaker protection but not for sound quality! I admit I don't like the sound of Adcoms on 100v2 Paradigms but hooked up on some Maggies it's a different story!

Eldartford..that could be true .I have a soft spot for Maggies and Martin Logans.But I doubt the sounding better is due to price,it's more of system matching.Even the little Monarchy SM 70 for $350.00 smoked that Mac that I used to own.I'am one of the few audiophiles that will admit...Even if I payed more for one product doesn't give me an excuse to think or hope it sounds better than one that cost less.I have already proved this in my own system and no longer look for the flashy gear but for what sounds true to my ears.If CC Poon put his Monarchy products in a chrome chassis ,he could sell them at almost triple the price.And no one would be the wiser!

You are right.. I checked Aball.. no argument.Maybe it's the powerguard or sentry monitor circuits they use in these models.I also listened to my 7106 on the 100v2s.And it was rolled off in comparison to the Adcoms and it did sound better because of this.The Paradigms can be bright when hooked to the wrong amp.So you also can use your own advice aswell.I sold an MX 132 to one of your fellow Brits..Mac makes good stuff.I enjoyed it just like every other amplifier I have owned ...sorry there is no perfect peice of equipment! But you already know I like having arguments with you! Heh ha hee

Enjoy the Mac.. Arthur and Happy Listening!

Thanks Ritteri for the advice.Actually I'am using Magnepans at home.I have a friend that owns the 100v.2s and I have spent many hours listening to them with different equipment.I see you use Voodoo aswell..these are some giant killer cables.And another good product thats overlooked because of it's price.I think I could change some minds about the Adcom gear when mated to Planars or Electrostatics.No one could deny it not sounding good when setup properly.Of course there will always be trade offs in something.I don't get the bass of the Paradigm or any other box speakers but I do gain clarity ,speed and inner detail with the Maggies.A trade off I'am willing to live with.

Good question Ritteri....well it's not an audible noise.I didn't notice it until I switched the the Mac out with the Monarchy.The Monarchy is supposed to be no feedback.And take also into account the wattage (monarchy)25 wpc verses (mac)300 wpc.Instantly I could hear more background noise..especailly in live recordings.Not hissing noises but people talking and laughing.There was just more ambience of the recording venue getting to my ears.Since then I have been ruined and only listen for amplifiers that can do the same thing.Not even my now removed Music Reference RM9 MKII which is a terrific tube amplifer had that kind of depth.I don't know the specs on feedback with my Adcom 585 but it must be very low because I can also hear these same attributes in it. Instead of just hearing people shouting in the audience you can hear their voices echoe off the walls of the venue.It's just easier for me to hear, when the singer turns his or her head away from the mic and what direction they turn.

Hope this gives you an idea!

Thanks Edartford for the info.The Music Reference has 3 settings for feedback and the manual stated for best results to leave it on the lowest setting.It was very easy to hear the differences when changing from one setting to another.The more feedback the more the soundstage seemed to get clouded up.

Aball thats what I was trying to say in other words.It does seem a tad slower and softer.Which to my ears is slighlty cloudy.I really don't understand the reason for having these settings.When the designer states for the most transparency leave it on the lowest settings.Then again maybe it has something to do with matching the preamp or cd player gain to the amplifier.I don't know ..Aball your the engineer how about shed some light on this.

Ritteri here's an section of an article I came across done by Doug Blackburn of Soundstage.You can go to this address and read the entire article .Of course this is one persons opinion. http://www.soundstage.com/maxdb/maxdb101998.htm

Feedback in low-level gain stages – It is becoming increasingly clear that less feedback rather than more is musically desirable. However, there is a point where you have to stop removing feedback due to some element(s) of the whole presentation falling apart, like the quality of bass. Too little negative feedback is big trouble for bass quality. How much is too little and how much is too much? I’ve never been impressed with zero negative feedback in an amplifier. A little bit of feedback, even as small an amount as 2dB to 4dB in one gain stage (out of three) is enough to keep the bass in line while not enough to do harm to the loveliness of the mids and highs. Too much is easy to identify. Think sibilants. You hear too much emphasis on sibilants? Chances are the amplifier you are listening to has way too much negative feedback. In fact, a good portion of what at one time was known in high-end land as "solid-state sound" was strictly an artifact of silly-large amounts of negative feedback. It is not entirely inaccurate to think of amps using a lot of negative feedback as the uptight conservative businessman of the audiophile world -- too inhibited to ever have a really good time. They are too controlled, too unforgiving, too dry, too emotionless, too uptight. They are certainly lower in total harmonic distortion than low-negative-feedback amps, but what does it matter if the music is as crisp and colorless as fall leaves in winter?

While zero negative feedback is too little, 10dB of global or even local (within a single gain stage) is often too much. Think 2dB to 6dB of local feedback for most amplifiers to do their thing with high levels of musicality across the entire musical spectrum. You can do "stupid amplifier tricks" playing with less or more feedback, but in the end, they all eventually sound "tricky" while the very moderate amount of feedback sounds like music. It’s typical for solid-state amplifiers to have 20dB to 60dB of negative feedback. Are those guys actually listening to what they are building?

There may very well be some wailing about my pronouncement that 2dB to 6dB of local negative feedback with no global negative feedback is "enough" coming from the amplifier manufacturer/designer community. Don’t trust them. If they think they need more feedback than that to get good sound, they just aren’t listening, or they don’t know how to resolve the problems that will crop up (sonic problems) when they eliminate most of the feedback they are used to using. That doesn’t mean my concept of the right amount of feedback is incorrect. It just means that some manufacturers/designers aren’t going to know how to incorporate that small of an amount of feedback into their products. The manufacturers that can build great-sounding solid-state (or tube) amps with low amounts of negative feedback without suffering muddiness of sound and woolly bass have a major sonic advantage that you will/can recognize once you have heard it.

Is having adjustable negative feedback a good idea? I have seen several tube amplifiers which have user adjustable negative feedback. On the surface, this seems like quite a worthwhile feature. It certainly is educational to hear what happens as you change the amount of feedback. However, once you begin trying different discrete resistors that are soldered into a negative-feedback loop -- well.... Let’s just say that the resistors in the negative-feedback loop are impressively obvious when changed, either in value, manufacturer or material. I cannot imagine any potentiometer added to the feedback loop would do anything but sound really bad compared to a single properly selected high-quality resistor. In fact, having heard how critical the resistor in the negative-feedback loop is, I can’t imagine a worse place to locate a potentiometer than in the negative-feedback loop. Compared to a good resistor, the best potentiometers sound quite bad. Use of a stepped attenuator might eliminate a lot of problems caused by sonic limitations of potentiometers. However, the negative-feedback loop is a very sensitive area of the circuit, I’m not sure if mechanical contacts in the stepped attenuator could ever be good enough to be sonically inconsequential in this location.

I agree with you on design,price tag and name.. Ritteri.But that being said with the right two amplifiers you will be able to hear a difference.Whether it's for good or bad it's not that hard to hear.I suppose there's no absolutes to anything especially in this hobby.Sounds like those Pallidiums are some great amps.Aball you should try to audition some Monarchy 100 SE monoblocks on your Paradigms I guarantee the differences will not be subtle.Also Arthur do you know if the Macs use any Global feedback or just local feedback? Just curious.