I just hate this preamp and have nothing good to say about it.

Noisy. Hard Treble. Etched. Listening fatique. Flat soundstaging. Poor emaging. Not Transparent. Poor design. Poor electronic parts selection. Problem with reliability.

The Adcom GTP-860 player is no where close to being an audiophile gear. I started from GTP-760, 830, 860 and I am fed up with Adcom's poor sound quality. If you are in the market for good sounding preamp processor, I would suggest you go somewhere else. If you insist and find out, please buy from a dealer that offers a return policy. You will see my reasoning why I dislike the Adcom GTP 860. In movies, the center channel sounded recessed. Dialog are hard to decipher and understand. There is this hissss coming from all channels when listening to low volume. I just cannot handle the noise. This high noise floor prevents subtle background murmur to be heard from DVDs. Micro-dynamics resolution is on the vague side. Imaging is not precise. The unit stopped functioning. I sent my unit for service twice and came back with the same noise issues. I am afraid that the quality of the components used are not audiophile grade and thus it shows. In music, there is no by-pass mode for 2ch music. The sound is not open and ambience retrieval is very low. Again, imaging and micro-dynamics are poor. There is this problem with noise.

Similar Products Used:

Adcom 760 (returned to dealer) Adcom 830 (returned to dealer) Bryston SP1.7 (current) Krell Showcase.