Fisher 400 - phono works!

[kappclark]

Sometimes i put on the classical via FM and the tuner sounds amazing as well

I can get 2 feeds pretty well - VPR Classical (88.1) and WFCR (88.5) ... the rest is pretty much junk -- FM has become a wasteland, in my opinion..the music is so compressed - the Fisher + Vinyl is like an oasis .. of course, there are online stations as well. I do not use Spotify or Pandora (All you can eat music) .. although we do have Alexa whose access to Amazon music is pretty amazing ..

but I really prefer the radio host telling a story about the artist, composer, performer etc.. like the story behing the song "Locomotion" performed by Little Eva...written by Carole King .. or the life-stories of famous composers and artists .. this hobby is about the music, ultimately ..

 

[Tim D]

Hey Bill,

Yeah the bladder in the storage tank is kind of like a capacitor, but the water system in a house is basically DC. The storage tank is actually more of a surge tank meant to cushion the system against sudden changes in pressure and over pressure in a closed system. I.e. In systems where there is a check valve back to the street: Without the surge tank there is no place to go if the water heater causes the water to expand slightly. That can force leaks at toilets, faucets and God forbid plumbing fittings. Having an air space in that tank allows the tank to mitigate the steep increase in pressure that would happen without air space. So yeah that tank is kind of a capacitor in the water world.

 

[kappclark]

Yes flac into aux will sound great

SO true - got the squeezebox receiver connected - very revealing session, and rediscovered some great demo songs like "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak and some others

..so looks like this puppy will be serving 2 purposes so far - need to re-string the FM dial cord ...

 

[tonyg88]

I feel like the tubes in the fisher bring digital recordings back to life.

 

[kappclark]

I have to agree...the tubes seem to civilize the bits and bytes ..

My flacs of Peggy Lee (and some 320 mp3's) were stunning ...("Black Coffee" was pretty special)... I did some Wayne Shorter -- ditto .. best track might be Chris Isaak "Wicked Game" followed in a close second by "End of the Innocence" by Don Henley (what a great recording - I think Bruce Hornsby does the piano)... a very close third is the entire cd of Harbor Lights by Bruce Hornsby. OH - forgot about "I.G.Y. by Donald Fagan (excellent space and detail -- a very good recording)...listened to some FLAC of ABBA and Madonna..

then I played "Guilty" by Streisand with Bee Gees ...wow her voice was amazing in a way I never heard ... (always knew she was amazing !)...same beauty with air, separation, detail, dimension .. a very nice recording (320 mp3) ...finished with FLAC "Sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot (Excellent vocals..bass a bit thinner - but not MIA ..)

Years ago, I took awhile and put all the CD's on FLAC, and they are now in several boxes downstairs ..my ultimate backup if the server crashes...have also collected many mp3's

I feel it harsh to criticize a 50+ year old classic piece of stereo, but I knew there would be more challenges --


I put on something more challenging in the low end, I started seeing the difference...test 1 was "Straight On To You" by Heart ...it was good - and vocals, stereo image, detail -- all good ... but the bass was not the way I had heard it before -- not exactly missing in action, but less than I was expecting ...

then I tried on "Lonely Voice" by October Project -- beautiful female voice, stereo image, detail, but deep bass line not as present as I had heard ... next up was Sheryl Crow "My Favorite Mistake" (figured that would be a good test for the bass) - and I was right .. I enjoyed listening to the song through the tubes, but the finish started to lose "power" once that bass started going .. no "shredding" of the signal, just not as much bass as I had heard before..

But right now, I am seeking refuge to the air conditioning and listening to a record of Jesse Colin Young "The Soul of a City Boy" (1974) -- my wife is here also, and she cannot believe how good it sounds...really is a nice album (which I picked up at the used CD store) ... and now I have this magic Fisher box that does a very satisfying translation ! Really a great LP ($3 at used CD store)

Sorry to go on and on -- this a very happy and joyful new experience for me. I think the last time I did this was with a pair of Polk 10a's back in the 80's, and I kept playing all the albums over and over .... "I wonder what this sounds like ...." stereo and music seems to feed some sort of OCD

 

[thornev]

Bill - Absolutely agree about the "wonder what this sounds like" after one does a major upgrade. It is Hornsby on "Innocence." And it's my fave guitarist on "Harbor Lights" - Pat Metheny. Thorne