Hi guys, thought I would update this thread. I found a local guy that has a good reputation for repairing tube gear, so I had him go through the pre and the tuner. He was pretty excited to see some vintage Fisher gear, and was quite aware of it's reputation. He showed me some of is gear, some nice Ampex monoblocks, a Fisher 800 receiver and some Mac gear, pretty nice stuff.
Anyway, I don't have all the details in front of me, but the tuner was in pretty decent shape, needed a couple tubes, can't remember the numbers, but they were pricey. The preamp proved to be a little more work. I was recapped, but it looks like it was in the 70's sometime, so the electrolytic caps were replaced. The biggest issues were that whoever did the recap, used the wrong value for the coupling caps. They had, I think this is right, .25uf, should have been .68uf, so they got replaced with some Mundorfs, can't remember which Mundorfs they were (supremes, maybe?, can't remember). The other thing was that someone had cut the connection to the Aux 2 outputs, so that had to be rewired.
I got it back almost 3 weeks ago and my first impression was..."wow this thing sound really bright" almost annoyingly bright and edgy. I thought I better give it some play time before I judge it. I know there are detractors on the whole 'burn-in' thing, but I swear this thing really mellowed out. It sounds very smooth, sweet, and surprisingly quiet. I'm not very good at all the audiophile descriptions, but I find it very easy to listen to, great vocals and jazz is fantastic. The only thing I can't get past is that on some music that has super low bass passages, this pre doesn't seem to let those notes through. I have a Carver C-1, and there are certain songs that have bass that you can really feel, more than hear with the Carver. When I swap in the Fisher, that thunderous bass just doesn't pass, maybe it's a tube thing, I'm not sure. I'm not too worried about it, I don't have that much music with that kind of bass, so for now I'm just going to enjoy the music!
The tuner is nice, it's a little noisy, might need to be aligned, or it could just be the crappy FM reception I get.
So far I'm pretty happy, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the console. I don't really have space for this thing, but it's a beautiful cabinet. At this point I have the components out and I'm using a solid state amp. The speakers I have are ADS 910's and a set of ESS AMT 1C's. Anyway, thanks sor all the advice, and for reading this ramble!!
Paul
Anyway, I don't have all the details in front of me, but the tuner was in pretty decent shape, needed a couple tubes, can't remember the numbers, but they were pricey. The preamp proved to be a little more work. I was recapped, but it looks like it was in the 70's sometime, so the electrolytic caps were replaced. The biggest issues were that whoever did the recap, used the wrong value for the coupling caps. They had, I think this is right, .25uf, should have been .68uf, so they got replaced with some Mundorfs, can't remember which Mundorfs they were (supremes, maybe?, can't remember). The other thing was that someone had cut the connection to the Aux 2 outputs, so that had to be rewired.
I got it back almost 3 weeks ago and my first impression was..."wow this thing sound really bright" almost annoyingly bright and edgy. I thought I better give it some play time before I judge it. I know there are detractors on the whole 'burn-in' thing, but I swear this thing really mellowed out. It sounds very smooth, sweet, and surprisingly quiet. I'm not very good at all the audiophile descriptions, but I find it very easy to listen to, great vocals and jazz is fantastic. The only thing I can't get past is that on some music that has super low bass passages, this pre doesn't seem to let those notes through. I have a Carver C-1, and there are certain songs that have bass that you can really feel, more than hear with the Carver. When I swap in the Fisher, that thunderous bass just doesn't pass, maybe it's a tube thing, I'm not sure. I'm not too worried about it, I don't have that much music with that kind of bass, so for now I'm just going to enjoy the music!
The tuner is nice, it's a little noisy, might need to be aligned, or it could just be the crappy FM reception I get.
So far I'm pretty happy, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the console. I don't really have space for this thing, but it's a beautiful cabinet. At this point I have the components out and I'm using a solid state amp. The speakers I have are ADS 910's and a set of ESS AMT 1C's. Anyway, thanks sor all the advice, and for reading this ramble!!
Paul
