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

I don't have one. Wish I did.

 

Sounds great. I bought a Fisher 500b about a year ago. It's my first tube amp and I love it.

 

Awesome. It would be my first as well! As for my upgrade plans overall, I started with Monoprice 12AWG speaker wire to replace the factory wires I was using. Next would be the receiver and then go from there. I have an old Sanyo TT I'm in the process up refurbishing with a new belt and stylus. I'm on a limited budget so one piece at a time. Thanks for the reply!

 

Another quick question. Still thinking about eventually hooking up a sub. I have these Pomona adapters and I'm thinking about treating them sort of like screw terminals and running bare wire to the sub and just placing it on the metal screw part of the adapter and hoping that there is enough to hold it. Any thoughts?

 

i just picked up this 800B

 

Clean as a whistle!

 

Yup part of the deal was a full refurb

 

You did well... treasure it!

 

I have had a Fisher 400 now for several years, I do enjoy it. I find it doesn't sound like a push pull tube amp and of course it doesn't sound like a single ended amp. I don't know how to explain it. Does anyone else feel that way when listing to it? In a good way it just sounds different.

 

On my 500b there is a line out in back..it's a single rca jack. I use that line out to my sub. Works great.

 

Thanks. I have read that that has blown some sub amps so i've been a bit hesitant. I guess I'll turn everything all the way down and see what happens.

 

You should be OK, but keep the volume on your sub low as you said.

 

Yes but, price being asked for the Fisher might be the deciding factor. Emphasis on the country of origin mix doesn't matter excepting what 12AX7's are in the phono section and of course their health. JJ's are good enough for all other positions. I've run new production JJ 7591's (to extend the life of my old stock tubes) but, I find them a bit grainy. My old stock Westinghouse are marvelous and can be obtained from Brent Jessee if you end up buying the unit. Be aware, the phono section of the Fisher is it's only weak link. It's satisfactory. Overall, it would appear the seller has addressed the necessary recap and rectifier replacement. The "C" also has a headphone jack for the added bonus.

 

That's what I did with the 400 I used to have, and now as well with my '59 X-100. It works like a charm.

 

Out of curiosity, were these Fisher amps sold in the UK back then?
I know we had Quad, Leak, Rogers amps etc. but I've never seen these over here.

 

Such a fun thread to read! I got real excited reading Steve's first post, as that price point sounds perfect. Then I realized how old this thread is and they're no longer $450. Will definitely keep an eye out at yard sales & estate sales in Sun City, AZ (retirement community).

 

I own a 500C and a X-100-C. Love both of them but a few weeks ago I picked up a restored Harmon Kardon A500 Integrated amp in a beautiful cypress cabinet. I put four Telefunkens in it a RCA black plate in for the phase inverter. Wow, phenomenal sound! Thank you for indulging me and now back to The Fisher.

 

Great thread guys!

I too was bit by the Fisher bug in 2008. Like Steve said you could/can get a Fisher for reasonable money to silly cheap.

My interest in the Fisher was as much why did these things sound incredible as that they do?

So I bought 6 in total and 3 are really nice. I listened to the best 3 left the best sounding one as stock so I would always have a stock Fisher as reference. I have a 500c x101st and x101-d (basically a 500c without tuner)

Just yesterday I got the 500c back from refurb. The x101-d and x101st both modded.


It all started in 2008 when a guy was coming by to buy my Klipsch Lascala's I had owned since 1980. He showed up with this old Fisher x101-d. I said he should bring his own amp to hear the Klipsch.

To be honest when he showed up with this amp that looked like he found it on the side of the street I really thought there was NO chance he would buy the speakers. After all I had a $10k SS pre and amp and he brought some relic...

Well my smug ass was in for a giant can of whoop ass!!!

These were not some strange speakers but mine for 28 years at the time. (Bought them as a teenager)

I could not believe what I was hearing! It ended with me begging him to sell me the Fisher! I was almost in tears at the thought he was going to buy the Lascala's.

I did not sell my expensive SS gear for maybe a year. I thought this vintage tube infatuation would pass I would come to my senses and hear the faults in time.

I still have not come to my senses!

The good news for you Fisher guys is you can get a LOT more out of them! Plus lose none of the charm. More on that to follow.

9 years I have been pushing to get every ounce out I can get. The tone of these things!

More to follow.

 

I'm not sure what push pull or single ended amps sound like, but I found my 400 to be lush and satisfying. My X-100 by comparison is a bit quicker in character.

 

A lot of the failures you read about may have to do with impedance mismatches. The impedance on the line outs on those old Fishers tend to be quite high (10kohm +) since they lack a cathode follower which would keep output impedance low enough for compatibility with modern solid-state equipment. If the sub's built in amplifier input impedance isn't at least 10 times the output impedance of the Fisher output, it might cause excessive loading on the Fisher. At best this will cause weak, bass shy sound (even from the sub!) and at worst, might cause a passive component in marginal condition to fail from the strain causing a domino effect. If your Fisher has been serviced with new caps and resistors in the known critical areas, you should be fine and is worthwhile trying.

I love the Fishers, but the lack of a cathode follower on the tape and other line outputs limit their use in my system.

 

I noticed that when I hook up a turntable to the Fisher (and another tubed receiver I have from the 60's) I don't need to use the grounding wire on the table. Why is that?

 

Inperson

Has yours be upgraded to a 3 prong plug?

 

Many people will talk about which old amp is best. I have the 3 Fishers. Tube and SS rectified.

In my fixing up I kept the best sounding Fisher stock and went to work on the worst sounding one. At the time it was the x101st. It is an EL 84 amp.

The reason it sounded worse than the 500c is the bubble gum caps are lousy. The Fisher 500c uses Vishay ERO West German machine made caps. They are MUCH better than the hand made (in a bad way) bubble gum caps.

In fact the later yellow Vishay's (newer) sounded better than the older ones kind of brown.

I have switched to Duelund VSF, Duelund RS and Duelund CAST, Jensen Copper Foil Paper Tube, Jupiter Copper Foil and VCap Cuft all are wayyyyyy better than bubble gum caps and better then Vishay's as well. The new caps are MUCH more dynamic. All paper in oil except the teflon VCaps.
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Fisher 500 Amp: The 50-Year-Old King of Pure Stereophonic Sound
I like mine and also like my KX 200 which is an integrated amp and looks to me like a 500 minus the radio.