Fisher 90t Tube tuner/pre with Marantz 2270?

[inspectorkru]

Hi all. I am relatively new to the hifi world, and definitely new to tubes. I found a Fisher 90-t "anniversary series" tube tuner and pre on craigslist that I am interested in. I haven't gone to see it yet, but the owner said he used a variac to power it up and it works. I have several questions:

1. If/when I go see it, what should I be looking for and asking about that would be a deal breaker in terms of restoration?

2. If it checks out, how easy is this to pair with a marantz 2270 (or similar) as the amp? The listing says its mono, so I don't want to be crossing streams if that is a problem.

3. What is the general reliability of something like this?

I know tubes sound great, but I want to be sure this can work with the setup I am building. Thanks all!

 

[inspectorkru]

Anyone? Bueller?

 

[tommarantz]

No idea how or if that can work, but why not make two seperate systems?
The 2270 is a great receiver on its own. :yes:

 

[RWood]

2. If it checks out, how easy is this to pair with a marantz 2270 (or similar) as the amp? The listing says its mono, so I don't want to be crossing streams if that is a problem.

Since the 2270 is a receiver it duplicates two of the functions of the Fisher, the tuner and the preamp. The Fisher would be best paired with a standalone power amp in a separate system from your Marantz, as tommarantz points out. Fortunately there are millions of hollow-state candidates waiting to be chosen for that task of powering your vintage system.

Although the Fisher has mono FM (as most of the earlyish FM tuners did) it does have a connection for a multiplexer (MPX) unit. So if you desired stereo FM from it you could add that later. Mono FM is easier to receive a decent signal than stereo so many of us simply enjoy it that way (see my icon).

Reliability.......those Fishers were very well built with quality components. There's always a possibility with equipment of that age that capacitors will need replacement, though, and tubes do wear out over time. Since apparently the power transformer works, though, there's very little that could not be fixed if it did have a problem.

RWood

 

[Destructor]

It can be done, I've used my Marantz 2250B as a stand alone tuner, tuner pre and a stand alone amp with my tube pre. No special reason, just playing around.