ssmith3046
Super Member
Great post! Thank you.
A Visit With The Fishers
- Thread starter TheRed1
- Start date
TheRed1
Console Conservationist
I don't really know the answer to that one. When I spoke with Mrs. Mergner I specifically asked her about this. I got the feeling she was being somewhat politic in her answers - perhaps still concerned with the professional reputations of the parties involved. Mr. Maerkle was still there when Mr. Mergner joined Fisher but the change-over happened fairly quickly. It seems clear Mr. Fisher recruited Fred Mergner with an eye toward replacing Mr. Maerkle. Whether Mr. Maerkle was leaving of his own accord or was being forced out is still an open question. My opinion - reading between the lines of what Mrs. Mergner told me, so to speak - is that it was a proactive move on Mr. Fisher's part.
After Mr. Maerkle left Fisher he went on to the brand-new CBS Labs in Stamford as a manager of product engineering. Perhaps he worked with Peter C. Goldmark but he is not mentioned in his book, 'Maverick Inventor, My Turbulent Years At CBS'. He subsequently worked at McIntosh Laboratory, Inc. where he was the chief engineer until his untimely death in 1962. He and his wife were among the passengers on the ill-fated American Airlines 707 that crashed into Jamaica Bay that year.
Len Feldman left Fisher in 1956 to form his own audio company, Madison-Fielding. (Fielding being an anglicized version of his last name.) He was also associated with Murry Crosby in his unsuccessful bid to promote his system of multiplexing. Mr. Feldman was a well-known writer and lecturer on the subject of high-fidelity well into what I think of as the modern era. He was the technical director of the IHF and wrote extensively for Audio magazine.
Mr. Weeden was also a writer on the subject of high fidelity who wrote a seminal article on wide-band AM receivers which appeared in Electronics magazine. Philharmonic brought him in as a consultant to advise them on the designs of their 1st generation of wide-band, high-fidelity TRF receivers. I don't know much else about his background or career but Victor Brociner mentioned he was with Stromberg-Carlson in 1960.
Dave, I have to say your questions have been very much along the lines of my own thinking. The distinct eras of Fisher's product design and their relationship to the different engineering teams is how I have always tried to conceptualize Fisher's history. With your knowledge of circuit design, can you discern any distinct design philosophies you might associate with a particular engineering team? I'd be curious to get your take on the Brociner/Weeden designs (Futura, Linear Standard, K-1 & S-6) versus the early Maerkle designs (S-9, K-2, 24/24A/24B). If you'd PM me an email I'd be happy to send you some schematics.
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Carter,
Can you summarize the different engineering teams into dates all at once. I happen to note some dramatic differences in controls and styling as well.
Maybe do a different thread.
Because just looking at the face plates of the equipment you can see sharp differences between years.
62 to 63 for example.
As if a different company was making the gear. Almost as dramatic as the differences noted later in the Emerson and Sanyo years.
I would think behind the scenes in the actual circuitry those philosophy's are even more evident.
Again this is a fascinating read.
Frannie
Can you summarize the different engineering teams into dates all at once. I happen to note some dramatic differences in controls and styling as well.
Maybe do a different thread.
Because just looking at the face plates of the equipment you can see sharp differences between years.
62 to 63 for example.
As if a different company was making the gear. Almost as dramatic as the differences noted later in the Emerson and Sanyo years.
I would think behind the scenes in the actual circuitry those philosophy's are even more evident.
Again this is a fascinating read.
Frannie
Carter -- What is so fascinating to me, is that you and I have backed into this question from (possibly) two different approaches -- yours from certainly your vast knowledge of the Fisher product line and the history of Fisher itself, and myself from their electronic design philosophy.
There is a side of Fisher that I never really knew existed to the level it did until I became active with AK. For example, I had no idea that their console product line was as developed or entrenched as it was until I became aware of that here. Or, that their console line was outfitted with much of their top-of-the-line equipment. I mention all of this because it appears to this late comer of this information that consoles were a very important part of the Fisher story, spanning all of the engineering teams at his companies -- which is to say it was important to Avery Fisher himself. I had very mistakenly thought that Fisher was only a manufacturer of fine audio "components", much in the way that say Grommes, Dynaco, or others might be considered.
On the other hand, I have always been very much aware of distinct periods at Fisher with regards to electronic design philosophy. Some of the design changes over time were no doubt fueled by changes in technology itself at the time, and also by Mr Fisher's seemingly driven goal to be able to state that his was a company of "firsts". I'm not telling you anything when I mention how much of his literature laid out all the firsts he felt his company could claim.
Still, buried in all of the technology changes, and the goals of Mr Fisher himself, there are distinct shifts apparent in electronic design philosophy at Fisher, that I dare say are directly attributable to the changing of the guard that you have documented.
To my mind, the Maerkle period could be electronically characterized as a cost no object approach, coupled with Mr. Fisher's desire for firsts. I translate this into drawing board designs that are unique, and striving for the the pentacle of performance that the technologies of the day permitted. This was apparent in both the outward physical appearance of their products, as well as what resided underneath the hood.
The 50-AZ and 70-AZ are but two examples (for example) of (what I believe was) a product of the Maerkle philosophy. The former uses a push-pull pair of Class AB2 operated 1614s in the output stage, that are triode connected, and driven by transformer coupling from a push-pull triode connected cathode follower driver stage. It is all powered by dual heavy duty rectifier tubes that feed a true choke input filter network, and employs an active shunt bias regulator circuit to maintain the bias voltage to the output tubes, even when their grids are being driven positive in Class B2 mode.
I mention all of this hardly to impress any electronic linguistic skills, but to emphasize that this type of commercial design approach was very very heady stuff for its day! In keeping with Fisher's desire of creating firsts, it would be very hard to find ANY other commercial product of the day (or any time period for that matter) that had this level of sophistication spring from the drawing board. The Mac approach was sophisticated as well, but even it didn't have the quality of power supply design that Fisher used in this product, and employed a proprietary output stage that Fisher couldn't use. What an answer to the Mac attack the 50-AZ was!
The 70 series of amplifiers was a more economical design to be sure, but still included what Williamson himself billed as a "Super UltraLinear" output stage, employing not only the traditional UL screen taps, but also taking a page from Mac's playbook, employed an output stage cathode feedback winding in the output transformer as well. Again, this was very gutsy commercial design for the day, and while they did ultimately wrestle a bit with this design, it again represents a product that virtually nobody else was offering.
To these very edge of the art electronic design philosophies of the day, add painted chassis, beautifully potted transformers, and unique physical layouts, and you end up with (I've always felt) products that are squarely aimed at the cost no object crowd, top of the line audiophile. It was high up in the clouds stuff, where few other manufacturers even tried to compete.
Against this very high end approach comes the Mergner philosophy, which (to my mind), represented a down grade in electronic design approach, but also represented an upgrade in parts quality and general build. From a sheer tactical standpoint for the pure benefit of the company however, I think it was a brilliant move.
Gone was full power bandwidth performance easily down to 20 Hz from the beautifully potted transformers of earlier models, and in was a more limited response down to about 25-30 Hz (higher in some models) from un-potted units. This saved copious amounts of weight and space in transformer size, both so desperately needed now for stereo products, and to up the WAF (wife acceptance factor) if the unit was ever going to have a front and center presence in the home's living room. The designs were all made smaller as well by the invasion of the EL84, and the development of the 7591, the latter of which could produce power levels formerly only possible from 6L6 class tubes, but at the low distortion levels from simple circuity that the former tubes could only deliver from more complex circuitry. Finally, dependable silicon rectifiers allowed rectifier tubes to disappear, for even smaller footprints and improved performance. Ergo, the all so familiar 6BQ5-EL84-7189-7591-7868 era of Fisher was fully in play, but now marketed not so much to cost no object high end audiophiles, but the hugely growing segment of upper middle class families who could afford fine music equipment, and were caught up in the stereo craze of the day.
This is all so very different from the Maerkle days, driven in part no doubt by the technological changes of the day, but also due to a very distinct shift in approach. It was no longer a cost no object design approach, but one employing good solid commercial design of the day -- used, copied, or copied and used by so many other manufacturers as we all know. That Mergner made the transition to his reign seemingly so seamlessly from his predecessor, while still managing to add to Mr. Fisher's all important list of firsts, deserves much credit. It all does make for a veeery interesting question though:
Was the shift in Fisher design philosophy due (principally) to the changing of the guard, OR............
Was the changing of the guard a proactive move on Avery's part made to adjust his company to the changing times ahead?
I am rather inclined to think that based on all we know of "the man", it was due to the latter. Maerkle was from an "older" time, where design execution had (virtually) no limits. The products were made from a point of attempting to have no peers, and were quite grand in their own right. But you have documented what a superb salesman Fisher was -- and that he was. As a good salesman, he was (obviously) keenly aware of the coming tidal wave of change to the home high fidelity industry (what with the onslaught of stereo coming), and very possibly might have questioned if Maerkle could adequately adapt to the new changes that would be required to effectively compete. The cost no object approach would have to be replaced with one where compromises were needed and deliberately made to stay competitive -- changes that could even allow their products to be built at home. With a changing target audience then, such changes would not only be required, but mandatory to remain relevant. Therefore, to successfully navigate the very fluid and changing audio scene of the day, the move to Mergner and the Dutchmen was (possibly or even likely) a brilliant move on Fisher's part, which no doubt propelled his company to it's largest size, and most successful period of operation in its history.
As for any comparison of design philosophy from the Philharmonic days to the early days of Fisher, I would need to see some schematics to make that judgement -- although you already provided one tantalizing clue by indicating that the first receivers were wideband TRF designs. For those following along, a TRF design follows the designs of the better AM radios -- before Armstrong's invention of the Superheterodyne circuit revolutionized the industry. While the TRF design could be sensitive and had very high quality audio reproduction, it was never known to be very selective without the use of many stages of amplification, and complicated mechanically ganged tuning capacitors. The superhet design instantly made all the old TRF designs obsolete, with much smaller, simpler, easily as sensitive, and now, very selective qualities -- but at the cost of audio quality. That Fisher (the man) was working with TRF designs in a day when that type of design was all but forgotten, speaks volumes to the level of audio quality he was attempting to achieve.
I'll PM you Carter with my email address -- I'll be happy to see what I can glean from some of the early schematics.
Once again, so many thanks for the invaluable contributions you have made to painting and maintaining the picture of what Mr Fisher and his companies were really all about.
Dave
There is a side of Fisher that I never really knew existed to the level it did until I became active with AK. For example, I had no idea that their console product line was as developed or entrenched as it was until I became aware of that here. Or, that their console line was outfitted with much of their top-of-the-line equipment. I mention all of this because it appears to this late comer of this information that consoles were a very important part of the Fisher story, spanning all of the engineering teams at his companies -- which is to say it was important to Avery Fisher himself. I had very mistakenly thought that Fisher was only a manufacturer of fine audio "components", much in the way that say Grommes, Dynaco, or others might be considered.
On the other hand, I have always been very much aware of distinct periods at Fisher with regards to electronic design philosophy. Some of the design changes over time were no doubt fueled by changes in technology itself at the time, and also by Mr Fisher's seemingly driven goal to be able to state that his was a company of "firsts". I'm not telling you anything when I mention how much of his literature laid out all the firsts he felt his company could claim.
Still, buried in all of the technology changes, and the goals of Mr Fisher himself, there are distinct shifts apparent in electronic design philosophy at Fisher, that I dare say are directly attributable to the changing of the guard that you have documented.
To my mind, the Maerkle period could be electronically characterized as a cost no object approach, coupled with Mr. Fisher's desire for firsts. I translate this into drawing board designs that are unique, and striving for the the pentacle of performance that the technologies of the day permitted. This was apparent in both the outward physical appearance of their products, as well as what resided underneath the hood.
The 50-AZ and 70-AZ are but two examples (for example) of (what I believe was) a product of the Maerkle philosophy. The former uses a push-pull pair of Class AB2 operated 1614s in the output stage, that are triode connected, and driven by transformer coupling from a push-pull triode connected cathode follower driver stage. It is all powered by dual heavy duty rectifier tubes that feed a true choke input filter network, and employs an active shunt bias regulator circuit to maintain the bias voltage to the output tubes, even when their grids are being driven positive in Class B2 mode.
I mention all of this hardly to impress any electronic linguistic skills, but to emphasize that this type of commercial design approach was very very heady stuff for its day! In keeping with Fisher's desire of creating firsts, it would be very hard to find ANY other commercial product of the day (or any time period for that matter) that had this level of sophistication spring from the drawing board. The Mac approach was sophisticated as well, but even it didn't have the quality of power supply design that Fisher used in this product, and employed a proprietary output stage that Fisher couldn't use. What an answer to the Mac attack the 50-AZ was!
The 70 series of amplifiers was a more economical design to be sure, but still included what Williamson himself billed as a "Super UltraLinear" output stage, employing not only the traditional UL screen taps, but also taking a page from Mac's playbook, employed an output stage cathode feedback winding in the output transformer as well. Again, this was very gutsy commercial design for the day, and while they did ultimately wrestle a bit with this design, it again represents a product that virtually nobody else was offering.
To these very edge of the art electronic design philosophies of the day, add painted chassis, beautifully potted transformers, and unique physical layouts, and you end up with (I've always felt) products that are squarely aimed at the cost no object crowd, top of the line audiophile. It was high up in the clouds stuff, where few other manufacturers even tried to compete.
Against this very high end approach comes the Mergner philosophy, which (to my mind), represented a down grade in electronic design approach, but also represented an upgrade in parts quality and general build. From a sheer tactical standpoint for the pure benefit of the company however, I think it was a brilliant move.
Gone was full power bandwidth performance easily down to 20 Hz from the beautifully potted transformers of earlier models, and in was a more limited response down to about 25-30 Hz (higher in some models) from un-potted units. This saved copious amounts of weight and space in transformer size, both so desperately needed now for stereo products, and to up the WAF (wife acceptance factor) if the unit was ever going to have a front and center presence in the home's living room. The designs were all made smaller as well by the invasion of the EL84, and the development of the 7591, the latter of which could produce power levels formerly only possible from 6L6 class tubes, but at the low distortion levels from simple circuity that the former tubes could only deliver from more complex circuitry. Finally, dependable silicon rectifiers allowed rectifier tubes to disappear, for even smaller footprints and improved performance. Ergo, the all so familiar 6BQ5-EL84-7189-7591-7868 era of Fisher was fully in play, but now marketed not so much to cost no object high end audiophiles, but the hugely growing segment of upper middle class families who could afford fine music equipment, and were caught up in the stereo craze of the day.
This is all so very different from the Maerkle days, driven in part no doubt by the technological changes of the day, but also due to a very distinct shift in approach. It was no longer a cost no object design approach, but one employing good solid commercial design of the day -- used, copied, or copied and used by so many other manufacturers as we all know. That Mergner made the transition to his reign seemingly so seamlessly from his predecessor, while still managing to add to Mr. Fisher's all important list of firsts, deserves much credit. It all does make for a veeery interesting question though:
Was the shift in Fisher design philosophy due (principally) to the changing of the guard, OR............
Was the changing of the guard a proactive move on Avery's part made to adjust his company to the changing times ahead?
I am rather inclined to think that based on all we know of "the man", it was due to the latter. Maerkle was from an "older" time, where design execution had (virtually) no limits. The products were made from a point of attempting to have no peers, and were quite grand in their own right. But you have documented what a superb salesman Fisher was -- and that he was. As a good salesman, he was (obviously) keenly aware of the coming tidal wave of change to the home high fidelity industry (what with the onslaught of stereo coming), and very possibly might have questioned if Maerkle could adequately adapt to the new changes that would be required to effectively compete. The cost no object approach would have to be replaced with one where compromises were needed and deliberately made to stay competitive -- changes that could even allow their products to be built at home. With a changing target audience then, such changes would not only be required, but mandatory to remain relevant. Therefore, to successfully navigate the very fluid and changing audio scene of the day, the move to Mergner and the Dutchmen was (possibly or even likely) a brilliant move on Fisher's part, which no doubt propelled his company to it's largest size, and most successful period of operation in its history.
As for any comparison of design philosophy from the Philharmonic days to the early days of Fisher, I would need to see some schematics to make that judgement -- although you already provided one tantalizing clue by indicating that the first receivers were wideband TRF designs. For those following along, a TRF design follows the designs of the better AM radios -- before Armstrong's invention of the Superheterodyne circuit revolutionized the industry. While the TRF design could be sensitive and had very high quality audio reproduction, it was never known to be very selective without the use of many stages of amplification, and complicated mechanically ganged tuning capacitors. The superhet design instantly made all the old TRF designs obsolete, with much smaller, simpler, easily as sensitive, and now, very selective qualities -- but at the cost of audio quality. That Fisher (the man) was working with TRF designs in a day when that type of design was all but forgotten, speaks volumes to the level of audio quality he was attempting to achieve.
I'll PM you Carter with my email address -- I'll be happy to see what I can glean from some of the early schematics.
Once again, so many thanks for the invaluable contributions you have made to painting and maintaining the picture of what Mr Fisher and his companies were really all about.
Dave
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TheRed1
Console Conservationist
Here you go, Frannie:
1937-1943 = Victor Brociner (Philharmonic Radio Co.)
1946-1956 = George Maerkle (Fisher Radio Co. & Corp.)
1957-1977 = Fred Mergner (Fisher Radio Corp./Emerson/Sanyo)
1977-???? = Herbert Lippold (Fisher Sanyo)
I think the changes you are referring to from the 1st generation stereo gear with the 15¹⁄₈" X 4¾" brass faceplate models (101-R, 100-T, 202-T, X-101, X-202, TA-600, etc.) to the second generation stereo gear with the 17½" X 5¾" extruded aluminum faceplate models (500-B, 800-B, etc.) - was more of a stylistic change. All those models are from Mr. Mergner's tenure.
The Maerkle era gear is marked by the octavo-sized, mono tuners and receivers (like your R-3) and the mono "boxcar" amps. I also believe there is a correlation between Mr. Maerkle and the "series" components which ran from the Series 50 (50-C, 50-A, 50-R) at least through the Series 90. It may have included the out-of-sequence, economy Series 20, 30 & 40 models from about 1958-59. There is also some question about the 55, 100, 125 & 200 amps, though they would seem to belong in the Maerkle "boxcar" camp. However, they are right on the cusp between Maerkle and Mergner eras.
The first definitive Mergner era designs, it would seem, would be the more-horizontal "100" series of stereo components including the FM-100, 100-T & SA-100. Then came the 101's and 202's, etc. but the sense of logical numerical progression - always a weak point with Fisher gear - rapidly broke down in the 1960s. In fact, I suspect the 101-R actually came out BEFORE any of the stereo 100-series models.
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Carter,
Thank you for that. I was not aware that Mergner had such a early imprint and I guess I could have done my homework on that one.
So the Maerkle Era .. Could it not be argued and I know I have already alluded to this that in the early part of this "Maerkle Era" that Fisher seemed to be in direct competition with the waning E.H Scott and Capehart product offerings. ???
That departing from that philosophy hastened his departure. Again bear with me as I am not as versed by far as to the nuances of the differing eras.
Just seems that Early Fishers were very much hand crafted works. While the later post mid 50's units were more increasing mass production with that nod to the hand crafted era. This philosophy far as I am concerned led to the collapse of US operations late in the 60's due to the Japanese just beating us at that game. Of course this is all wild conjecture on my part. Easy to revise 40 year old history I have found.
Frannie
Thank you for that. I was not aware that Mergner had such a early imprint and I guess I could have done my homework on that one.
So the Maerkle Era .. Could it not be argued and I know I have already alluded to this that in the early part of this "Maerkle Era" that Fisher seemed to be in direct competition with the waning E.H Scott and Capehart product offerings. ???
That departing from that philosophy hastened his departure. Again bear with me as I am not as versed by far as to the nuances of the differing eras.
Just seems that Early Fishers were very much hand crafted works. While the later post mid 50's units were more increasing mass production with that nod to the hand crafted era. This philosophy far as I am concerned led to the collapse of US operations late in the 60's due to the Japanese just beating us at that game. Of course this is all wild conjecture on my part. Easy to revise 40 year old history I have found.
Frannie
TheRed1
Console Conservationist
I think that Mr. Fisher certainly had his sights set on E. H. Scott and Capehart BEFORE the war. However, during the war those targets moved . . . considerably. After the war both companies were either stagnant or actively declining. Their immediate postwar offerings were creditable enough but they weren't breaking any new ground. Their loss of visionary leadership set them on the same dead-end path to higher margins by way of cheaper products that Avery Fisher's own Philharmonic Radio would descend down after the war.
Mere months before WWII finally made its way to our shores, in Oct. 1941, Avery Fisher launched his own surprise attack on Capehart and Scott: The Philharmonic Imperial. Undoubtedly an attempt to establish Philharmonic as one of the major contenders in the high-end radio-phonograph field, they were built around the new 15-tube Electra S-6 chassis and also included the 9-tube GE JFM-90 FM receiver AS WELL AS a 5-tube volume expander. They even came equipped with a Garrard RC-100 turn-over record changer that was likely superior to Capehart's finicky beasts. Priced at over $1,000, Philharmonic actually sold a handful of these before the war crushed that dream.
Among the duplicate items Chip gave me was a copy of what I believe to be the last ever Avery Fisher-designed Philharmonic catalog. This was probably produced in 1943/44 just to keep the Philharmonic name out there. I think the cabinetry looks very similar to Capehart's prewar offerings.
Garrard RC-100
I was reading Marvin Hobbs' book about E. H. Scott recently. I suspect Ernest Humphrey's wartime experience losing his company was not unlike to Avery Fisher's own loss of Philharmonic: not a happy one. However, Mr. Fisher was still young enough with his drive and vision intact to get back up and try again. His Philharmonic experience probably taught him very valuable lessons that stood him in good stead at Fisher Radio.
After the war the big threat - to all these high-end manufacturers - was TELEVISION. I don't think Mr. Fisher spent much time looking to his left or right at Scott or Capehart; I think they were all looking over their shoulders at that same one-eyed juggernaut.
I agree. Be sure to read Dave Gillespie's last post on the preceding page. It provides an incredibly insightful analysis of this period in Fisher's history and how it relates to larger trends in the U.S. electronics industry. Fisher was able to increase market share by adding mid-range and entry-level consoles to his lineup. Then, in the early 50s, he got the timing exactly right when he introduced a line of high-quality components just in time to catch the crest of the Hi-Fi wave that was sweeping the country. He rode that wave all the way until just before it broke on the shores of Japan. Above all, Avery Fisher had timing.
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