How to verify Adcom GFA-545 was modified by JW

[Shordeli]

I recently purchased a set of Monitors (Amphion One15), and they came with an Adcom GFA-545 that the previous owner said was Modified by Jim Williams. He said that he didn't have it modified, but the person he purchased it from did, so there was no receipt, etc.

What would be the easiest way for me to verify this? Is it something I can do comparing schematics, or what would be the best approach? Hoping this is the correct spot for this, I'm new to the forum. Appreciate any help!

 

[scott2000]

You could take some pictures and send them to Mr. Williams along with your concerns of wanting to verify it's story?
Or maybe look for some pictures online by searching for his mods and look at your amp's circuits to see if they have any additions that look similar...?
Or read some forums where he speaks of some of the mods, look at the schematics, and then look at your amp to see if it looks similar?

 

[Shordeli]

You could take some pictures and send them to Mr. Williams along with your concerns of wanting to verify it's story?
Or maybe look for some pictures online by searching for his mods?
Or read some forums where he speaks of some of the mods, look at the schematics, and then look at your amp to see if it looks similar?

Yeah maybe just taking some pics and sending to JW might be the best move. I'm a seasoned mix engineer, but I'm not terribly familiar with the actual schematics with these sorts of things, so that might be a good approach.

I was sent here from the Audio Engineering subreddit after looking for answers there. If I were to try and look for pictures online of his mods (I've done some googling and only found random threads on "gearspace" that didn't have any specific modification info), would this forum be the best place to look?

I'm a total newb with this sort of stuff, so I appreciate the info

 

[scott2000]

I'm not terribly familiar with the actual schematics with these sorts of things, so that might be a good approach.

Seems like contacting him would be the best. Even if you were to research and find some things that looked similar in the context of where things might be,apart from obvious omissions, it doesn't seem like it could be 100% knowing if JW had an actual hand in any of it apart from inspiration. More of a feel good possibility of maybe he did perhaps...
GS has been where a lot of his tips have been shared for sure.
Could even assume that , considering the pedigree of the equipment you bought, things would be on the up and up with the story and you could focus on other things.. but where's the fun in that? lol

 

[TheJames]

Crack it open and look for a bunch of WIMAs tacked on the PCB and all the opamps swapped out for ridiculously fast ones.

Years ago I picked up a Jim Williams modded Dynamite. It's back to stock. I love it.

That's no knock on Jim's work, but sometimes stripping the character away from gear kills the charm. Now that Adcom is a well regarded piece and any work done to improve its performance is probably worth it.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I recently purchased a set of Monitors (Amphion One15), and they came with an Adcom GFA-545 that the previous owner said was Modified by Jim Williams. He said that he didn't have it modified, but the person he purchased it from did, so there was no receipt, etc.

What would be the easiest way for me to verify this? Is it something I can do comparing schematics, or what would be the best approach? Hoping this is the correct spot for this, I'm new to the forum. Appreciate any help!

I don't know about easy but AFAIK the Jim Williams (Audio Upgrades) is active over at Gearspace.com

JR