Adcom Memories
Here are a few memories of my time at Adcom. Be aware that some of these things may or may not have happened, depending on how clearly I remembered it. It has been over 25 years since I thought of these things.
GDA-600
The day the first GDA-600 showed up at Adcom was a memorable day in my personal audio history. I was still working in the service dept. and specialized in CD players and GFP-1 restorations. I was given the GDA as a new thing to be a "specialist" in. Right away, even with cheap headphones, it was apparent that this device did not have the old Adcom house-sound. This sound was much warmer, not at all forward or edgy. Through speakers, the soundstage had depth, which was not something the GCD-575 (or very many CD players at the time) did very well.
Part of this "new sound" can be attributed to the Burr-Brown OPA604 opamp, which was new at the time. This IC had a rich, detailed, dimensional but somewhat dark sound. These devices lent a laid-back sound to more closely match their MOSFET amplifiers. The old Adcom house-sound tended towards a bright and forward presentation; the new sound was nearly the opposite. The other part of the GDA-600's great sound was in the use of the now legendary Burr-Brown PCM63P, a R2R ladder DAC chip.
Not long after the GDA-600 came out, the GDA-700 arrived at the shop for an initial inspection. I had the good fortune to compare the 700 directly to the 600. The 700 deviated from the old Adcom house-sound in the same way as the 600, but the soundstage lost some depth and the sound was a little thinner, more sparkley. I thought the 600 got closer to reality - it did not sound "electronic" like I thought the 700 did. The 700 was made for HDCDs and used a Pacific Microsonics chip to process the digital signal before it got to the DAC chips. This chip was looking for that one bit from an HDCD that would change the decoder from CD to HDCD. I think the public forgot about HDCD just as quickly as they forgot about CD4 (quadraphonic), Betamax, video disks, DAT tape, minidisks, etc. The GDA-700 was built for an unproven, and not very popular format, leaving something of a compromise for regular redbook playback. This is only my opinion.
Back in the early days of digital music, I wondered if any digital audio device would ever be able to become a classic. The digital world evolves so quickly that it is almost a certainty that any hardware will be called "outdated" before it would be called "classic". The GDA-600 might just qualify as "classic" as it remains a very sought after DAC over 25yrs after its release.
Early Adcom
The GFA-1/GFA-1A, GFA-2, GFP-1/GFP-1A and others may bear a resemblance to some S.A.E. products of the time. This is because a man named Morris Kessler was involved in the design of this equipment. James Bongiorno, also of Scientific Audio Equipment, is known to have designed balanced bridged amplifiers very similar to the GFA-1/1A. I suspect that the relationship extended to using the same production facility as some of the chassis designs look similar.
Adcom was a family owned business. As I understand, Newt Channin started the company, and he was an audiophile before most people knew what the word audiophile meant. Adcom started in distributing and they shipped Dual turntables, Hegeman Hapi 2 preamps, Cizek speakers, KLH, and Braun (A/D/S in the US) among others. Later, they used various companies or designers to design or manufacture their own products. Dynavector (I think) made the second generation of Adcom's wonderful Cross-Coil phono cartridges, Morris Kessler (S.A.E.), Nelson Pass (Threshold), Walt Jung, and Walter Morrey (DB Systems) all designed early Adcom equipment. They also brought in my mentor C. Victor Campos (Acoustic Research) for product development, which gave them visibility via some legendary audio gear.
I left not long after the new wave of MOSFET amplifiers and multichannel HT processors hit the market. The GFP-750, in my opinion, was the last great Adcom product made. I heard that several missteps were made in the years after I left. A person who I had once worked with was apparently responsible for some serious mistakes, and took prominent part in their downfall. The mistakes must have been expensive, because they went back to distributing - this time for KEF America. The Adcom brand was sold to an interest in Arizona, and then later to a Taiwanese company. KEF America moved from East Brunswick to Marlboro, NJ - a food distributor presently occupies the building.
Victor came from Acoustic Research and was friend to Edgar Villchur (who he called "Eddy"). How and when he came to Adcom is unknown to me, but I did not see or meet him until after the (very poorly designed and unreliable) GSP-560 was released. C. Victor Campos had a reputation. I like to think the reputation was an overall good one, but there were some who seemed to express something like dread at the sound of his name. I remember some of the quirks that made him a special person. Victor's unique blend of persistence and tenacity, I think, made people without those qualities wither. He definitely had a presence, almost imposing, despite not being a big or tall guy. Victor got shit done! He made it look so easy; he would just call the right person, and the problem will be quickly and handily solved. He was not quite terse, but maybe "brusque" on the phone, and as soon as he heard the information he was looking for, he'd end the conversation with something like "okthankyougoodbye" and hang up the phone all in one smooth motion that took only milliseconds. He had an accent that sounded somewhere between Boston and Brooklyn, and a unique lilt that put a certain emphasis on words or phrases. My mentor had a big Roladex full of names and numbers of just about every audio luminary in the history of recorded sound. Victor's nickname for me was "Shadow" (The Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men) because he could never find me, even if I was in direct line of sight. The work he assigned was so much more enjoyable than servicing the same stuff every day; interesting things like tracking bias vs temperature, writing testing procedures and service manuals, inspecting and testing new products before anyone else, and selecting/testing equipment for reviews. I feel fortunate to have learned so much from Victor - he started me on a career of research and development in some of the most advanced telcom laboratories on the east coast. Emulating his way of getting things done took great part in my career successes. I could never be thankful enough.
Adcom's first white faceplate option came with the 2nd generation GFA-555. It was a standard 19" 4U faceplate, but was painted glossy white and the lettering changed from white to black. White handles were also included, though there are some with the 1st gen round handles. Shortly after, they made white faceplates for most of the line including the ribbed 555 faceplates of the 3rd gen. The white GTP-500 was a popular seller, and these showed up at the service dept most (some owners shorted unused outputs, causing damage). Most, if not all white faceplate Adcoms have yellowed plastic parts. These parts would start yellowing months after purchase, power switches being the first to change. Sunlight accelerated the process, but even cave-dwellers' Adcoms eventually turned.
Adcom also offered a silver faceplate option. There were very few of these made and they were rare to see, even in the warehouse. The silver faced units used black plastic parts. Overall, the look wasn't as coherent as all black, or all white. Maybe that's why there were so few made.
Eloi and Morlocks
In the land of Adcom, 11 Elkins Rd. East Brunswick, New Jersey, there was the Front and the Back. The Eloi worked in the Front where there was warmth and light, answering phones, shuffling paper and taking long lunches. The Morlocks worked in the Back where it was dark and cold, moving boxes, servicing units, and behaving exactly as disgusting as the Eloi thought they were. There were liasons on both sides, and exceptions of course, but there was no neutral.
Break-in
11 Elkins Rd. was a very sturdy 2 story standalone warehouse that, if I recall, was previously owned by a flourescent lightbulb manufacturer. This warehouse was chock-full of entry-level high-end equipment and, due to lack of any security, there was the occasional "liberation" of a piece of gear by an employee (there were two guys who, in particular, engaged in regular theft). But there was one evening that it was not an inside job, in fact it was very outside. At the time, there was an incredible story in the papers of thieves who broke into the local Home Depot through the ceiling. They used very low tech tools to do the job. It turns out that these very thieves broke into Adcom - literally! They used sledgehammers to break through the wall into the Service Manager's office. They did not steal much, as far as I know. There was no alarm in the front, nor was there any money; all of the value was in the warehouse, which had an alarm. The thieves tripped the warehouse alarm and ran. They were caught a week later - four burly immigrants with sledgehammers and initiative.
Mildly interesting
The service department had its memorable moments. One time, a pair of 8-Gauge cables connected to the outputs of an Adocom car amplifier shorted and caused a fire in the service dept. A particularly heroic co-worker managed to get close enough to shut down the power supply so the fire could be extinguished. The amplifier was assumed to have suffered catastropic damage, but there was none. The amplifier ran the whole time - it drove a dead short without blowing up!
I worked on Naomi Campbell's GCD-600, and another co-worker worked on Robert Plant's GFA-555 mkII (mounted in a road case). It's always a nice feeling to know someone famous or noteworthy enjoys your work.
Our Sound Technology FM Stereo Signal Generator was used more than once to mess with the guys in the warehouse. This signal generator was used to tune FM tuners, and ordinarily used a cable to connect to the tuner's antenna connector directly. However, if you used one of the cheap FM antennas that came with a GFT or GTP on the signal generator, you could broadcast whatever stereo signal you wanted. It wasn't too difficult to find the station the warehouse guys were listening to, and overpower their signal with our own Service Department Pirate Radio. I'm sure the broadcast was strong enough to be recieved by passing cars outside the building, so this was done sparingly with keen awareness that it was an egregious FCC violation.
The Professor
I have a funny story about a GCD-575: A psychology professor from an ivy league school sent in his CD player with an angry letter complaining that it played too fast (at the time, I believed that it was a ridiculous assertion, but now I understand that it could happen). So, I was directed to transfer the mainboard and transport from a brand new GCD-575 into his unit and send it back (that is; the professor is returned a new GCD-575 in his original chassis). Since no one at Adcom detected any speed problems, the customer's original mainboard and transport were put back into the donor unit and then placed back into stock.
Shortly after the professor's unit was sent back, we get another angry letter complaining of the same speed issue. There is no possibility that his original chassis could affect the playback speed but he swore that his serviced and returned CD player still played too fast, and this second, long, angry letter now demanded a new GCD-575. So we obliged and sent him a new unit from stock which, purely by chance, was the the one that had his original motherboard and transport that allegedly played too fast.
The professor called back a few days later saying how happy he was with his new GCD-575 and that it played perfectly! Psychology indeed :-)