Fisher TA-600 Owners

dsndblm

Super Member
I'd like to hear from other Fisher TA-600 owners. What do you think of your receivers? How do you like the sound? Are your 600's restored? If so, to what extent?

I bought mine two years ago in bone stock form. Before using the TA I replaced every cap inluding the multi section electrolytics. During the rebuild I also replaced most of the resistors in the power supply. I'm using all the original tubes except for the outputs which are Russian 6P14P-EV's.

When I first started using the receiver after the rebuild I wasn't really impressed. However, the more I use the 51 year old Fisher the better I like it. In fact, after a few hours of use last night I like the sound of the TA better than my Fisher 400. The TA seems to be a perfect match for my Cornwalls.:banana:
 
I bought mine from one of the mods here at AK, & he said a multi-cap can was replaced & some other things were done, & gave it a clean bill of health. I started using it right away, but didn't really have decent speakers back then, so it sat awhile. Now I'm using it with an EICO MX-99 MPX (you don't really NEED an MPX for it to sound good, but it really opens it up) & slightly modded Heresies, & it's just great. I was pretty lucky, mine came with GE 7189s, & a lot of other good tubes, but I've put all Mullard 12AX7s in the front end, which really helped. :music: This was supposedly "the" first stereo receiver, and the amp is definitely stereo, but the AM/FM stereo simulcast deal just wasn't what we think of as stereo today. ;)
 
I enjoy listening to the 600 in my 1960 Premiere console but my 400 logs 10 times the amount of listening hours. It's mostly a matter of convenience since I have the 400 hooked up to my wife's satellite radio and iPod as well as the DVD, DVR, and TV. She uses the 400 for her morning getting-ready-for-work listening and we both use it a lot for listening to NPR on the weekends.

I tend to use the 600 for showing off when I want to fill the house with music when we have parties. It's also nice to listen to while dining; when we're preparing meals or even while doing serious house cleaning. The 600 sounds "bigger" to me; more like live music. The 400 is just a bit more intimate, focused and detailed. I realize a lot of my perception is probably the result of speaker placement and signal source.

My 600, being in a console at the foot of a 3 story open stairwell in the very center of our townhouse, is handicapped with less than ideal speaker placement but still manages to shine. I replaced the original 3-way Jensens with a pair of Audio Nirvana 10" full-range speakers and it sounds very much like the 400 through the Klipsch KG-3s I have that paired with. The Jensens were definitely much warmer and I may reinstall them one of these days. I have a pair of Cornwalls in storage that I've been meaning to try with the 600 for the last 3 years but the logistics are daunting. My wife would definitely have to be out of town for that experiment lest she think I was contemplating redecorating.

I have done very little to the 600 since it had been well maintained by its prior owners through the late 90s. Its power supply caps are original and should be replaced, I know, but the coupling caps and numerous other components are not original. It also came with Telefunken EL-84s which I can trace back to a trip to a local electronics shop in 1983. They seem to be holding out OK, and sound pretty good to me. I would be curious to hear how a set of proper 7189s might sound, though.

The 400, in contrast, has been fully restored by NOSValves. I trust it implicitly. My wife knows her way around the controls as well as do I. Our local NPR station's Hot Jazz Saturday Night show just started (on the 400) - I'm headed downstairs to fire up the 600 for a comparison.

UPDATE: For old-time Jazz and Big Band the 600 just sounds "right" to me. The original recordings I'm judging by are mostly mono recordings transmitted in stereo. When played back in stereo on the 400 it sounds "thin" to me. I just had my wife switch the 400 to its FM mono setting and flip up the loudness switch and now it sounds almost as good as the 600. The 400 has a lot of new production tubes (EH 7868s, JJ 12AX7s) that might be a factor, too.
 
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