I have had my Adcom GCD-600 for about four years and have been fairly happy with the sonic performance. My Carver integrated amp doesn't seem to like the line level output but that may not be the Adcom's fault. Going to the adjustable preouts allowed me to use the volume knob on the Carver to it's fullest, not just the first quarter turn. Just made a major upgrade in speakers and the CD player seems to sound as good as the more expensive unit used to audition the speakers, but no A/B comparo done. I have the usual mouse-begging-for-cheese-squeak when the door opens and closes and the player won't open sometimes until the stop button is pressed. Also, getting it to play the freakin' disc can sometimes try your patience, with a bit of button pressing and on/off switching together with creative language to get things going. But these episodes are few, and have actually seemed to mellow with age. Overall I think a solid performer sonically with a couple of not so endearing personality quirks.

I live in a fraternity and the house owns an Adcom GCD-600. I don't see why a fraternity would choose to buy such an expensive CD player instead of some cheaper $200 disc changer. Now, the CD player doesn't even work right. All the buttons on the front panel, with the exception of the power button, do not respond at all. When the unit is turned on and the carousel spins around to check if there are any CD's in it, it makes a rattling/grinding noise like the bearings aren't aligned properly. Needless to say, this unit has seen a lot of use and abuse. I can't say I'd recommend it for someone who doesn't take great care for their equipment. Not that Adcom didn't build it well, probably other CD players wouldn't last near as long as this one has. But in a place like this, where stuff gets damaged very frequently, equipment that is less expensive to repair or replace would be a smarter choice.

I bought my GCD-600 from a pawn shop for $25 bucks. It has been a real diamond in the rough ever since I've owned it. Yes as everyone says it squeaks when the carosel opens, but other than that I'm pleased as punch. I've compaired it to a phillips single disk cd-player my friend had and still think the adcom is better. The buttons have really beautiful red led's (green in the case of the power button) and the internal circuitry kickith much ass... Overall I give it a 5 because I found it so darn cheap.

Okay, so the 600 has been superseded by the 700, but there are still plentyof them out there, and if you get a chance to pick one up used you wanna know
if it's a good buy, right?

My 600 is now 3.5 years old and has served me well with no mechanical failures.
The CD drawer tends to squeek like a mouse when it opens or closes, but
we don't really care about that, right? Also, once or twice a year it seems to go haywire: spinning the carousel non-stop, or not being able to read a disk.
Flipping the on/off switch has always solved that problem for at least six months. YRMV.

With respect to error correction, I think the 600 is a little lacking. Several
of my disks exhibit annoying clicks and pops and other sonic oddities that my old Sony had no trouble with (until it died completely).

But how does it sound? Beats me, all CD players sound good to me and I don't pretend to have good enough ears to hear the differences between models. I A/B'ed it with the Rotel 5 disk and heard no difference.

Brand new I'd say the GCD-600 was a three star CD. Used, for less than $351, it goes up to four. And no, mine isn't for sale.

Sounds Great! Very reliable.

Tray is a bit noisy when it opens, but doesn't bother me.

I have owned this CD changer since 1993 and it has been great. I don't use it every day anymore (mostly because of the digital music channels on DirecTV), but I have never had a problem with it in the 8+ years I've owned it. I find the sound to be excellent. FYI, I have it paired with virtually all Adcom equipment: GTP-550 tuner, GFA-555 II amp, GFA 5503 amp, Klipsch Chorus II and Klipsh KG 4.5 speakers.

- dual output, variable and fixed
- clear sound, soundstage, tight
- polarity
- produce in 1995 and still great
- dual transformer

- Rotary tray
- Philips, Sony and Denon chips inside...:)

- They all are great even produced in 1995. (I play 3 hours a day)
- The optic is still great.
- The noisy tray can be repair by giving a plastic grease. (Be carefull when open the ADCOM logo at the center of the tray...)

Great sound, clean design, polarity switch

reliability, lack of power switch on remote

I bought this one for the sound...I'd listened to a bunch of CD players (from Sony, Yamaha, NAD and Denon) before I bought this one, and while it was a little more money, it blew them away. Clean, uncolored sound, excellent channel separation, very good audio detail. That's the good news. The bad news: it's in the shop - again! It died on me for the first time about a month after I bought it - the read head had to be realigned. Then the tray developed a nasty rattle and stopped working altogether a couple years back. Now the tray has stopped working again - and while I can't buy another CD changer that sounds this good for $150 (the estimated repair price), I'm quickly reaching the point where I'll have spent enough on repairs to justify a new one.

Similar Products Used:

Sony, Fisher, Yamaha

The comments made by others regarding the build quality of this machine do not match my experience. I'm not disagreeing with them, since I'm sure they had the problems they described and people tend to remember things like that. I've had my '600 for about seven years now and it gets a LOT of use. Very good sound quality for the age (meaning technology at the time) and price. It features 100% Class A circutry and dual 16 bit DACS with 192KHz sampling. Single ended analog outputs only, with your choice of fixed or variable output. Digital out is also included (RCS only). I've had zero mechanical problems with either transport or remote. Re the remote: EXCELLENT cross-room pickup on all functions. Polarity inverse is a remote function (rather ahead ofits time like the rest of the unit). I've "abused" the transport many many times by changing disks (by remote) while a song is playing. (5-CD carousel) CRecommended procedure is to STOP then change. I have occasionally experienced the squeak upon drawer close that others mention. No big deal for me. Finally, I bought a Musical Fidelity X-25 24/96 outboard DAC for Christmas 4 months ago, to hang off the GCD 600. After many experiments, I've decided to sell the X-25 since the original DAC sounds much better. None the less, the GCD-600 is the oldest piece I have and needs replacing. I've decided to buy a high quality player like the Wadia 860, and run the GCD-600's digital out through the new machine. I'm sure the Wadia will sound some better, but not nearly as much as you would think. Like everyone says, this machine SOUNDS VERY VERY GOOD. And I'm not ready to completely give up the convenience of a 5-CD changer. Sound:4, Value:5, reputation:3= 4 in my book.

Price, Sound Quality, Overall Looks

Lack of power control on remote.

Picked the GCD 600 to replace my HK FL8300 that crapped out for the last time. A very clean looking unit that matches well to my HK AVR85 receiver. Yes, the transport system is fairly noisey, but I don't hear the squeaks that others have complained about.

Overall, the sound quality is very good on this unit. The built in A/D converter seems to be warmer sounding than using the digital output and the A/D converter in the AVR85. Acoustic instruments appear to have more of a three dimensional sound than with other units. The variable output feature is a nice touch. This helps to compensate for poorly mastered CD's.

The build quality appears to be pretty good and only time will tell how reliable this unit will be. It would be hard to find a better unit for the price I paid.

Similar Products Used:

Harman Kardon, Nakamichi, Kenwood, Yamaha