Vintage Consoles - Fisher or Grundig?

gjesse

New Member
Shopping for console stereos I found a '61 Fisher Philharmonic P-22 stereo console and a 50's Grundig Majestic (assuming mono).
Same price. Can't decide. Advice anyone?
 
A stereo Fisher console from '61 may have variants of the 20A/30A amplifiers in it and would be the first one I would check out. Not sure when the 480A was in production but that amp is an outside possibility too. Sometimes Fisher split amp duties in their consoles with a standalone monoblock (20A or 30A) and put the other channel on the tuner/pre chassis. A single 20A./30A is half the battle towards a killer setup and a 480A puts you nearly in the "all done" slot. Good luck but I'd hurry.
 
personally I'd go for the Fisher. Probably less complicated to work on, and if I had to bet on it, more power as well. The Philharmonic was one of their entry level units but its still nice. German stuff performs well, but its not always the easiest to work on.

That said, you might get lucky and find the Grundig has the NF-20 push-pull EL84 amp, and those are apparently something very special.
 
Excellent info...thanks! To be clear, I'm looking to use it as-is for a living room piece...not trying to pull it apart for components.

No Grundig love out there? Love the look of it. Not sure what to expect with the short wave, as far as reception and what kind of programming I'd hear. No experience with SW radio. Is this basically just HAM operators? How far away do you think it'll actually receive signals from?
 
Grundig & Fisher lovers out here but as already pointed out the choice for many is based on the guts of the console. If the amp is mono & all part of an integrated chassis with the tuner, that might not be so attractive and could be more complex to maintain. If it has a relatively well known & respected power amp inside it then that has potential immediate benefits in restoration. That said, if you like the look of one vs. the other and the innards are just more as an occasional nostalgic experience then the choice is more aesthetics for your home.

For info on Fisher consoles you might check here:
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/fisher-console-website.332545/
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/fisher-consoles-1959-1965.146667/
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/fisher-consoles-1945-1958.154781/
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/the-fisher-chassis-1945-1969.313720/
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/a-compendium-of-fisher-consoles.477128/
 
If the Fisher isn't in your house yet, make it so... Most Grundigs are a table radio chassis in a fancy cabinet, though their top models did rival Fisher's.

The Fisher P-22 is a single chassis with push-pull 6GW8s - about 10 watts per channel.
 
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As always, thanks for the input y'all. Looks like I'll be going with the Fisher, especially after finding a pic online of the underside of the Grundig tuner chassis. Couldnt pack any more in there if you tried. I know whichever one I get will need a cap job, and I just know I'd screw something up in the grundig as a result of my efforts, if I could even get to them. I'll post more once I get it in the house, and the chassis on the bench
 
If its basically the tabletop in a big box setup vs a stand-alone amp, yeah that will be a challenge to work on. I've done it but its not exactly on my top 10 list of types of gear that is a joy to service.

My later Philharmonic chassis on the other hand, thats a piece of cake. Plenty of room, not a bunch of power but it sounds good and has a proper Fisher tuner in it.
 
Without considering the servicing aspect I would go for the Fisher without any hesitations. The Grundig is only a basic fair quality german radio chassis in a floor console cabinet, the Fisher is true Hi-Fi. You can't even compare them, they're not playing in the same class.
 
I'd go with the FISHER, even tho it's the bottom of the line. Like Gadget said, the chassis is fairly large and has a lot of Room in it. The P-22 dates from 1961 but the same chassis carried on for 1 more year in the P-25 Philharmonic II. Both have ability to play FM in STEREO but will need an external multiplexer. However MONO FM is quite good in these.
 
gjesse; Looking at the schematic, all the way to the right on the upper row (tuner section), you'll see a output named MPX OUTPUT. This and the FM OUTPUT gets sent to the Multiplexer where it separates the mono FM signal with the AM carrier that has the left and right sub signals into LEFT and RIGHT Stereo Channels. Then it gets fed back into the AUX RCA inputs. You set the selector to AUX (FM STEREO) and play it normally. This was Fisher's solution to a lot of the lower ended units (including the 610 consolette with the 30A amp on a separate cabinet) and it works quite well.

The K-10 Space Expander has 2 separate chassis and is screwed to the back of the console or wood piece used with separates. The Reverb out and reverb in RCA's are designed to be used only with the K-10. I've tried it with a PIONEER SR202W and it didn't work too well. So it came back off after about 10 minutes.
 
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But, if you have to choose, Fisher, all the way.
 
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