Interesting to hear your description of how the Adcoms sounded to you. Yes we do hear differently for sure! My 3 Adcoms ( I don't remember the model numbers ) were new and at the time, the smaller one, middle and largest they had - at the time. All I remember was it was as if I had pillows over my ears. No definition, no soundstage to speak of, just left and right channel. They sounded soft with Phase Linear ( now I forget the model name of those...oh, Andromeda speakers...flat with Bose 901 speakers, washed out with the Magnepans and just all round waste of time and money so I took them back. I tried several pre amps from Tandberg, Perreaux, Crown, Phase 4000 and at least 3 more that have fallen into the black hole of memory. I certainly don't want to insult any Adcom fans either and thought long and hard before even saying anything. But from experience....and again, it was only my experience. I started getting into Crown amps when I heard some very revealing material. Actually, it was REO Speedwagon who I have always considered to be a very tight group but during casual listening to a borrowed amp that you had to turn on with a screw driver because the on/off button was long ago broken along with the filters missing and upon looking inside the amp with a flashlight appeared as if it had been salvaged from the bottom of a cargo ship but the sound was something else. All of a sudden I started noticing the singers were out of sync in a number of cuts and occaisionally you could hear one singer turn their head away from the mike for a mere moment. I was blown away from the details. Not to mention the very focused sound of the letter "t" and "s" without the shsp that followed and is normally associated with these letters. Sort of like listening with a microscope. All of a sudden, some of my favorite groups were starting to sound like some not too much practiced mariachi group during happy hour rather than the professional people I thought they were. That is revealing and as Crown states in their logo past...when your ready for real.........This is by no means a Crown commercial. I don't work for Crown or push Crown. Like you say, we all hear differently but I thank God I discovered Crown. Guess thats how I wound up with 6 of them and looking for a 300(A?) upon Bills reccomendation. It would serve as a great back up for the bedroom system provided it is not fan cooled. Guess i've babbled enough...anyway...have a great week!
Carlos