Help Needed Power Amp lacks punch

I put an Adcom 555 to shame in my system. My little McIntosh dished it out way more readily in the bass despite the Adcom's big power rating. Maybe you need a different amp? You could be having mismatch issues too which are compromising it. Arthur

I've found that the power cord can make quite a difference on big, mid-fi and above amplifiers. No experience with an Adcom specifically, though.

After doing some research I found the 555mkII had the most slam and for some reason the newer adcoms lacked a little.I don't know if they started doing something different but thats what I found.Good luck

Could be electric power issues. Is your AC power clean? Are you still using a standard OEM power cord? Don't plug the amp into a power strip; put it right into the wall.

Kgveteran: The 555's were bipolar amps, hence my comments above.

Sugarbrie: While your basic suggestions are good ( heavier gauge cord directly into the wall ), "dirty" AC typically sounds "fuller" than clean AC on the bottom end and harder / grittier as frequency rises. The increased warmth has to do with all of the harmonic distortion of the 60 Hz AC signal itself being further amplified through-out the chain. Cleaning up the incoming AC and then minimizing the ringing that takes place in the equipment itself via replacing slow rectification devices tends to lean the sound out a bit.

Rainchild: If my suggestions above don't give you what you want, you might want to think about modifying your amp. That is, if you like it enough to want to keep it. These amps were notorious for starving the earlier stages of amplification when dynamic swings or sustained high level spl's were taking place. There are several different approaches that one can take to rectify this situation with the two most common being to add massive amounts of filter capacitance and / or install a regulator circuit. You can find the circuit boards for the regulators at this link that i've provided for Audio Xpress aka "Old Colony Sound Labs". Sean
>