Froggy5326
Active Member
I will. Good thread!!!!
Absolutely blown away... Snell Type A V (5) Reference
- Thread starter Froggy5326
- Start date
if budget constraints are going to keep the 555s in for a while two inexpensive upgrades to them will help a ton.
1. replace all those chrome plated ground buss bars with solid copper bars of the same shape and size.
2. add a 0.22 film cap in parallel with each of the big blue power supply caps in the Adcom.
Both will help give a more organic sound.....
J
1. replace all those chrome plated ground buss bars with solid copper bars of the same shape and size.
2. add a 0.22 film cap in parallel with each of the big blue power supply caps in the Adcom.
Both will help give a more organic sound.....
J
Froggy5326
Active Member
I will be looking for a local guy who can do that. I will have four 555's in the array here shortly, and I'll shop them all at the same time.
That is a glorious setup, beautifully executed, and stylish. Also, I'm guessing it don't sound too bad, either. 
Do you happen to have the specs for these?
Budgetblown
New Member
I've got part of that setup - courtesy of a terrible ebay listing a few years back, I got a pair of unused A5 towers, the external crossovers, the wiring looms to connect them, and the powered crossover for just over £500. Mine are in teh walnut finish.
I would have bought the subwoofers as well - they went for just over £100 each, but they're too damn big and heavy - and I lived in an upstairs flat at the time...
I'm actually part way through finally wiring them up - M.E. and arthritis are a fantastic combination that sometimes leave me on my arse - but given a few days, I hope to finally listen to mine
I've had to improvise a LOT on the way. I was hoping that a simaudio moon attraction 5.1 would be able to roll off bass frequencies to the side channels, acting as a replacement for the bass crossover (which didn't have a power supply... and trying to get one... fail!) - but it won't do it. It's still going to be the pre-amp, but I also have a Myryad MDP500 and a Thule Spirit PR350b in the wings. The pre-amp will be feeding a behringer DBX9624 speaker management unit, which in turn will feed a pair of Adcom GFA585LE power amps (don't worry, they've been recapped!) although I'm considering replacing one of them with a pair of factory custom GFA565's I have.
Finding replacements for the subs on a budget was a bit of an issue. A chance ebay ad was helpful - I found a chap who had ordered 3 pairs of custom BK subwoofers... while drunk. Front firing (which I wanted) and passive. Sadly in white, he obviously wasn't drunk enough to buy the premium walnut finish!
A friend has made some custom interconnects for me to help keep this frankenstein's wiring tidy, and some custom speaker cables too. I've got a pair of big bore solid silver speaker cables that I can't bring myself to part with, but also couldn't bring myself to cut down! So a purchase of some Mogami cable was called for, and voila - ready to go.
It's been so long, I'm almost scared to try these speakers. But then again, if I chicken out, my TJL 3w's are lovely dark horses that have surprised a lot of people
I would have bought the subwoofers as well - they went for just over £100 each, but they're too damn big and heavy - and I lived in an upstairs flat at the time...
I'm actually part way through finally wiring them up - M.E. and arthritis are a fantastic combination that sometimes leave me on my arse - but given a few days, I hope to finally listen to mine
I've had to improvise a LOT on the way. I was hoping that a simaudio moon attraction 5.1 would be able to roll off bass frequencies to the side channels, acting as a replacement for the bass crossover (which didn't have a power supply... and trying to get one... fail!) - but it won't do it. It's still going to be the pre-amp, but I also have a Myryad MDP500 and a Thule Spirit PR350b in the wings. The pre-amp will be feeding a behringer DBX9624 speaker management unit, which in turn will feed a pair of Adcom GFA585LE power amps (don't worry, they've been recapped!) although I'm considering replacing one of them with a pair of factory custom GFA565's I have.Finding replacements for the subs on a budget was a bit of an issue. A chance ebay ad was helpful - I found a chap who had ordered 3 pairs of custom BK subwoofers... while drunk. Front firing (which I wanted) and passive. Sadly in white, he obviously wasn't drunk enough to buy the premium walnut finish!
A friend has made some custom interconnects for me to help keep this frankenstein's wiring tidy, and some custom speaker cables too. I've got a pair of big bore solid silver speaker cables that I can't bring myself to part with, but also couldn't bring myself to cut down! So a purchase of some Mogami cable was called for, and voila - ready to go.
It's been so long, I'm almost scared to try these speakers. But then again, if I chicken out, my TJL 3w's are lovely dark horses that have surprised a lot of people
Budgetblown
New Member
Well, a bit of a change of direction for me.
Arcam recently discontinued the FMJ RS 250 - a 2 channel AV amp aimed at simplifying the integration of audio and video. Chief amongst its' capabilities (for me at least!) is the presence of sterero sub outs, with user selectable crossover points. My setup is now - RS250 acting as pre-amp (not using the on-board amplification at all), GFA 585LE as power amp to drive the ever-so-hungry Snell towers, and a GFA 545-II driving the subs. A fortuitous failure of one of my power amps led me to experiment with other amps, and the 545 is a fantastic match. With the subs I have, it's almost at the perfect level without any changes to the default sub levels (although I do need to turn the sub levels down a tiny bit, the under 80hz frequencies are a little high) but at least I haven't had to resort to using the Arcam unit's DIRAC yet.
That said, the amp that has had a failure will be getting a full service/repair done, I may ask for a couple of tweaks on it when that happens... Captive power cables annoy me
Overall, it sounds damned good. The speakers are almost run in now, and I've moved on to cable tuning and getting the rest of the system together. A refurb 55" tv is waiting in the wings, and I'm now looking at putting a plex server into place to stream to the DVD player I bought with this in mind (Sony UDP X800m2). This DVD player makes a good transport, incidentally. I haven't tried an optical cable yet (nor do I plan to) - but via SPDIF to the Arcam's onboard DAC it does make some very nice noises.
I do envy your speakers not having the grilles - apparently NOT having them fitted (they're nailed in place from what I've been told, and I can't contradict this) is a factory option.
Arcam recently discontinued the FMJ RS 250 - a 2 channel AV amp aimed at simplifying the integration of audio and video. Chief amongst its' capabilities (for me at least!) is the presence of sterero sub outs, with user selectable crossover points. My setup is now - RS250 acting as pre-amp (not using the on-board amplification at all), GFA 585LE as power amp to drive the ever-so-hungry Snell towers, and a GFA 545-II driving the subs. A fortuitous failure of one of my power amps led me to experiment with other amps, and the 545 is a fantastic match. With the subs I have, it's almost at the perfect level without any changes to the default sub levels (although I do need to turn the sub levels down a tiny bit, the under 80hz frequencies are a little high) but at least I haven't had to resort to using the Arcam unit's DIRAC yet.
That said, the amp that has had a failure will be getting a full service/repair done, I may ask for a couple of tweaks on it when that happens... Captive power cables annoy me
Overall, it sounds damned good. The speakers are almost run in now, and I've moved on to cable tuning and getting the rest of the system together. A refurb 55" tv is waiting in the wings, and I'm now looking at putting a plex server into place to stream to the DVD player I bought with this in mind (Sony UDP X800m2). This DVD player makes a good transport, incidentally. I haven't tried an optical cable yet (nor do I plan to) - but via SPDIF to the Arcam's onboard DAC it does make some very nice noises.
I do envy your speakers not having the grilles - apparently NOT having them fitted (they're nailed in place from what I've been told, and I can't contradict this) is a factory option.
Froggy5326
Active Member
Update a few years in…. I still absolutely love this setup. Settled on four GFA-555’s sourced through a Mini DSP out of the Marantz. Extremely good sounding setup, plays a very “live” 112db without effort and will make you religious after listening to Pink Floyd “Pulse” late night after a few drinks. The subsonic content in that recording is insane. Best auditioned with Tidal or a digital source that isn’t flapped in any way by the extraordinary amount of air movement from the subs chugging away.
Pretty close to declaring this the “final answer” to my audio questions.
Pretty close to declaring this the “final answer” to my audio questions.
