FISHER all-tube receivers from 1961-66 are cheap and sound wonderful!

They are nominally 8 ohms, but I get the best performance off the 4 ohm taps. Indeed, some reviewers have determined that they dip down to that range a lot.

 

Got the Scott 222C in Friday, 9/16, but it wasn't until Tuesday evening that I put the face plate on and installed the tubes. I made a diagram of the tube location and numbered the tubes. I took a 2nd sheet of paper and listen the tube type and make next to each number.

I had to take the banana connectors off the A7 wires and install spade lugs for the Scott. When I first fired it up, the high end seemed flat, but that was just some mediocre piano and ambient stuff off the streaming box. The Internet crapped out (Thank You Comcast!), so I called it a night.

The next morning, I switched from the ambient station to Jazz this morning and the difference was day and night. The A7's sound wonderful with the smooth jazz that I was playing through the 222C.

I changed the station to Kiana Krall for some jazz vocals, again, it was excellent!

The A7's really rock with this amp. The synergy is amazing. I have Emilie-Claire Barlow singing something in French, with a mellow horn and acoustic guitar, playing. Simple but clean, very elegant and natural sounding.

Benny Golson, just came on playing Dear Cathy, saxophone music. Very sweet!

I found a pair of vintage mid-60's Warferdale W70's locally on eBay Monday. I want to get them hooked up to the Scott later today.

 

I'm glad it's working out for you!

It's no secret that I love my ancient turntables and Fisher tubes, but I have yet to find 1960s-era speakers that can complete with modern designs, even when brought back to spec, so don't be disappointed if the Wharfedales underwhelm you. I do love the look of older box speakers though.

 

Truthfully, when I first set them up today, they did underwhelm me!

Sounded like something that I would be listening to Christmas music on back in the middle 60's.

Have been playing with them today. I decided to stack them one on top of the other. Sonic improvement.

Both sitting on the floor just didn't do it for me. Bass too boomy and tweeter was physically too low. One on top of the other, is an improvement. Next I twisted the cabinets a bit. One is pointing to my left and one to the right of my sitting position.

There is some jazz on and the alto sax is playing, it seems realistic. The station is cool jazz. The double bass is mellow. Now a mellow almost solo trumpet is playing, it seems real. The piano is a bit flat, not off key, just not too much life to it.

Some music sounds better than others, eh. I can't say that they sound bad, and are quite good, for the couple of hundred that I paid for them. But the music doesn't project, it appears to be coming from within the box.

There is some synergy in the system, when I combine them with two other sets of speakers driven by SS amps.

Oddly enough, the W-70's, sounded best with all three systems playing New Age Beats Radio / Chill Out Radio, better than the A7's. Part of that is that stacked, they are like a center channel, with different timber than the pair on the left and the pair on the right. Bass everywhere is solid.

Other than that, the A7's sounded way better all the way around.

While the Scott, sounds good with jazz, mellow music, vocals sound best. But it also tames thin sounding old records. For more modern vocals and such, the Rogue M-150 monoblocks are better sounding and have that solid punch behind them.

Just first impressions... Back to the ultra bass chill out music with the Scott and the W70's, with the other two systems running.

 

This is true. I've run my very power hungry AR3's with Heathkit W-5 mono blocks(about 25 watts) as well as a 400. I've got a relatively small room, and don't play music that loud, and the combination sounded great to me. I guess I prefer my Yamaha M4 that goes 170 watts into 4 ohms, but the point is that given one's specific situation, it's certainly possible to use lightweight tube amps to power inefficient speakers.

 

Wow, I'd like to hear that.

 

Which?

 

Anything with the AR3's! I've yet to hear those speakers, except for a tired old set that hadn't been recapped or resealed (and sounded like ass).

 

Oh. I got these from Crestwood23 on AK, after he completely restored them. Here's a link to the thread over there that details the restoration and you can drool at the pics They are a special pair that's for sure. AR3's - so pretty I couldn't resist... | Audiokarma Home Audio Stereo Discussion Forums »

Been listening to the all day Coltrane birthday marathon on wkcr.org and they were made for that.

 

I have the love but I love my KLH Model 5 speakers paired up with my 500C or even my little X-100-C. Recapped a few years ago and sounding great. Much more efficient than one would expect.

 

I'm sorry I gave my 5's up. They are not easy to find, and they are great speakers. I have AR3's, KLH Model Six's, Wharfedale W60's, and Dynaco A35's, but if given the chance to own 5's again at a decent price I could see myself biting.

 

I know Tyler, and was even at his house a few weeks ago! I was drooling when he had those AR3's listed.

 

I feel your pain. I used to have AR-3a's, I still have AR-2a's AR-6's, AR-4ax's, New Large Advent's, AR-8's, Dynaco's, but the Model 5's are my favorites when it comes to using a tube amp. Mr. Kloss hit the target with the 5's. Mine are from the first year of production, 1968, and I'll never part with them.

 

Hey Sam! Glad to hear the 3's are being well loved and being fed a steady diet of Coltrane. They are very special for sure, those oil caps should be really hitting their stride by now. I'm just sorry I didn't hang onto them long enough for Glenn to hear them!

@SandAndGlass - be patient with those w70's - I recommend recapping them with NOS Russian PCB oil caps (available on eBay). I used them in my w90's (and sberger's AR3's) and they are just fantastic. The 222c should be a great match with the w70's too. They are pretty much polar opposites to the Altecs though - the Altecs will always be way more dynamic than the w70's, and you may just be more of a "horn guy" by nature. IME a big horn loaded speaker like the A7 really blows you away in small doses, but becomes fatiguing for long sessions. My w90's sound a bit tame and polite at first listen, but have a way of really sucking me into the music without an ounce of fatigue. Great in smaller rooms too.

 

I do agree with you.

Curious, I just previously posted to a thread "breaking-in-equipment", here is what I said;

[I can understand that anything mechanical, could benefit from a break in period. The more mechanical, the more the need to just loosen up, if new or after sitting idle, for long periods of time. In this case, older used equipment may benefit more from break in, than something new, that just came from a manufacture who at least tested it, even if it wasn't broken in as such.

I just bought a fifty year old set of speakers, who knows, how long they were sitting unused, before I bought them from eBay. The seller is just someone who acquired them for resale. He may have hooked them up to an amp for 30-seconds to determined if they worked or not? The speakers didn't sound quite right the first day of so. After that they began to sound more natural.

The vintage speakers I just mentioned, I later thought, my brain is telling me, that they are not sounding like (my) speakers should sound. And it was right. I wanted vintage speakers, I got vintage speakers, they are going to sound like old vintage speakers and not like new modern speakers. I thing that I had to have a conversation and explain that to my brain.

Note, that I did use the phrase "old" when referring to my vintage speakers. I know that I have more than a bit more wear after a half century on the planet. Anything on the planet is going to experience wear and tear after only a few years, let alone a half century. So the sound I am getting is probably not the sounds they were capable of when newly "broken in" but reflect all these years of wear.]

Actually, I do like them better now. and intend to continue working with them (along with my ears), to better understand and achieve a true "quality" vintage sound.

First impressions are just that, it is good to note your initial reaction and then to revisit them as your time and experience with them grows.

Some of the sound sounds a little dark, but I am getting my brain used to the sound and liking it too. Sometimes, it is overly bright sounding and a bit thin. Something that would seem to be a contradiction?

The real interesting thing is the system synergy.

As to the A7's, They can perfect for reproducing the SQ of rock concerts, at sound levels of rock concerts. Since this is what I listened to in my youth, it is what lead me to the A7's when I was sixteen and others, if they were lucky, were listening to AR', KLH's and such. (most were listening to way far worse speakers, which were neither like A7's nor AR's...

Today, after many, many years. I have learned to tame A7's. ALK crossovers, tube preamp and amps, kinder DAC in the Peachtree iNova, geared toward making digital sound more like analog, things of that nature.

Even then, they are dynamic, forward sound speakers that can and do reproduce the sound of live events, and do it very well. But I almost never play the A7's by themselves. I play them along with two other unprocessed pair of stereo speakers. I have an Emotiva, remote analog volume control that I use to determine how much A7's are in the total mix. That gives me the best of almost everything.

The W-70's also seem to work in a different way (opposite as you say), of the A7's, but they create a different kind of synergy, when played with the entire system. Who'd have thought, that they would work with New Age Beats and Chill Out Radio?

The Soctt 222C, very nice, but so is the Rogue and the other modern tube amps, just different.

BTW, does anyone have any knowledge what the value of the caps are in the W-70's? I would like to replace them with PCB oil caps. (I still want to find the right pair of W-90's, as I do like that BIG sound.

 

Tyler yes indeed they are breaking in nicely. The were a little crisp out of the box, but I expected that. But they are settling in now and filling the room with the most glorious sound. And they are so beautiful to look at too. Couldn't be happier.

 

I probably should have tried that with the Dentons, using the 4ohm taps. Oh well. Plenty of time to experiment. I've been focusing on the W90's because I've been working on finding a new place, and I wanted to get as much time with the W90's while I don't have to worry about the volume level. Once I move, that situation could change.

 

Yup. They bigger Wharfedales from the '60's are all about long listening sessions. And those drivers were designed to work well in the smaller rooms found in apartments, duplexes, etc. that they have in the UK, and that carried over to the US-marketed W*0 models as well.

My W90's are magic with instruments like the baritone sax as well as the tenor sax.. Same goes for the Mellotron, the Hammond B3 organ, the clavinet, etc.. And certain groups are like that as well. I play the Temptations' "Gold" 2CD collection a lot (Songs like "I Want A Love I Can See" sound like they were custom-mixed just for the Wharfedale W90's... Same for songs like "Psychedelic Shack" and "Ball Of Confusion"). And that Booker T. & The MG's 3CD set that I have sounds VERY-sweet. I've been enjoying that VERY-much lately.

 

I love my fisher 500b...sounds awesome. When i want to go really vintage i hook up my klh model six's.

 

One word to describe the aural experience that results when pairing Fisher tube receiver with the KLH Six: Fun as hell!

 

That was 3 words...but soo true.

 

Bought the EH 7591 tubes last week to replace failing RCA tubes in my 500b. They sound great and are still in the 80 to 90 dollar range for a quad. So far...I'm very happy with them.

 

I'd appreciate if someone would recommend where I can get my Fisher 500B restored in Canada?
Cheers

 

Opposite where you are but I've heard good things about these guys

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