Fisher STV 870 Speakers

[DRG6901]

I recently got a whole stereo system for free off craigslist. It was the Fisher 860 Series (Turntable, Tuner, Receiver, Tape Deck, and a bonus Sony 5 Disc CD Player) with the matching cabinet and speakers. I have seen the blogs here that the Hi-Fi setup as a whole is bad and low quality, the speakers especially. The speakers and receiver are nice (being 100 WPC) and I was wondering how to make them sound better. I saw that changing the mid-range and tweeter could help quite a bit and I was wondering if there are any good recommendations. I don't care about originality or how they look just as long as they sound good. I don't really know a lot about older audio systems being that this one was produced before I was even born. I don't have a huge budget either, but anything within reason would be great.

 

[Chilibrother]

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on scoring a system for free!

I don't recall seeing any examples of anyone trying to modify a pair of 1980's Fisher rack system speakers. I'm afraid that is a ways past the peak of Fisher components. I don't know that I would invest money in making changes that may or may not be an improvement - especially on something that has minimal intrinsic value.

The bigger question is how they sound to you - regardless of their reputation. Do they sound OK for something at the $0.00 price point? If so, enjoy using them in the garage or on the patio and consider saving your money for another project. Just my 2 cents.

 

[nfafan]

I was gifted 2 different pairs of the huge 3-way bass reflex monkey-coffin-sized STVs and discovered quickly that they get illegally loud, but when playing at lower volume levels I found that the 15” white-coned woofers seemed to be doing all the work.

Anyway, I figured that since the speakers were so “new”, re-caps would be a pointless waste of cash, so I added some cheap “egg-crate” foam mattress padding and scrap-wood cross-bracing to the one pair, leaving the other pair stock. Can’t say it made any difference as I did not have my A/B switch at the time to tell if it made any diff or not.

Regardless some friends got some knock-about garage/picnic-grove-graduation-party speakers for their kids.

If I were to do such mods again, I’d do one speaker at a time; first adding some cross-bracing, then spraying the interior with some of that rubberized undercoating stuff you can snag at auto parts stores. When fully dry, add some foam mattress padding to the interior and then properly A/B it against the other to see if it made any difference.

Good luck and have funs, that's what its all about.

 

[DRG6901]

Chilibrother,
Thanks for responding. I understand what you are saying about the speaker and them not being worth it. Personally, I think they sound terrible and cloudy, and generally makes the listening experience unenjoyable. It would seem like it is too high pitched and has too much bass at the same time, even after tuning it with the equalizer on the receiver. It really needs a mid-range that can speak up. That's why I was wondering what I could do to upgrade it. I don't really have a lot of money to put into another speak of speakers so I was wondering if these would perform better if upgraded.

nfafan,
Thank you for responding as well. I understand what you are saying about the upgrades you did to your speakers but would that tone down the bass enough so mid-range would be more present? Also, even after all of these years, they are still illegally loud. even with the bass on the lowest setting.

 

[swechsler]

Hi DRG, and welcome. With rack systems like these, the speakers are usually the weak spot. While you could experiment and try swapping drivers, there's no guarantee of success and in fact it's pretty unlikely that you'll ever make them "good". Assuming you don't have access to free replacement drivers, I'd guess that for the price of replacement midranges and tweeters you could find a better set of speakers to replace them with (although it may take a little patience). Where do you live? If you're anywhere near a big city, setting up an automated search on Craigslist for "speakers" (use the title only option) and your max price will probably find you something good in fairly short order. Don't worry about the wattage rating on the speakers, as it's pretty much meaningless.

You can always post your search results here for members to give their opinions.

 

[FluxT]

From what I can tell on mine (DS177), the crossovers are the big let-down. It doesn’t seem like the midrange is really rolled off either above or below it’s apparent frequency range (I’d guesstimate between 900Hz and 3kHz), and so you get a darker, boxy sound as a result. There’s probably a million ways to modify them, but you might be better off just simply selling them off and putting the money towards nicer speakers.

Personally, I kinda have a big soft spot for mine. New Year’s proved they’re fantastic party speakers, and super easy to listen to. Plus there’s something so utterly ridiculous about them, and they never fail to draw some sort of comment. I’d trade them in a heartbeat for some Klipsch Heresy’s or Polk 10’s, but I could definitely see myself hanging onto these.

 

[DRG6901]

Well thanks for all of the replies. I have a friend who traded me some Sony SPV 7700s for them and they are a million times better.

 

[nexus]

Fisher made a few decent speakers many years before the rack systems of course. Last time i heard a Fisher speaker that was good was about 1972.

 

[FluxT]

I wound up loaning mine to a friend of mine to help him get started in audio. He's hardly a neophyte to audio-he got me hooked on headphones after demoing his Sennheisers with the new Massdrop Objective amp, and I helped him pick out a nice recapped '70s Yamaha receiver and fixed up a nice Sanyo P-mount to get him started. Helping him search for speakers that were in his price range and suited his tastes proved kinda fruitless. He was unimpressed by the demo speakers at Best Buy (but quite taken with the Martin Logan electrostats in the Magnolia section), and any decent used offerings on Craigslist kept getting snatched up before he could jump on them. Since I was moving back into my dorm and decided to bring my Polk bookshelves, I figured I might as well lend him the Fishers so he at least has something to listen on and eventually upgrade from. I'd made sure he knew about the faults and flaws, made no bones about it, and gave him my EQ settings to tame the midbass and bring up the treble.

A week later and he's still texting me about how good these sound. Maybe it's a case of perfectly matched equipment, differing expectations, first love, or extreme politeness, but he's super happy with them. It's also been super fun exchanging music and observations on what sounds good and what doesn't.

 

[nfafan]

<snip>

A week later and he's still texting me about how good these sound. Maybe it's a case of perfectly matched equipment, differing expectations, first love, or extreme politeness, but he's super happy with them. It's also been super fun exchanging music and observations on what sounds good and what doesn't.

And that's what its all about; what sounds good to your own ears.

 

[Thad Ed]

I also aquired a set of Fisher STV-870 3 ways for free, loved them, and i believe that I may have fried one of the crossovers. How difficult would it be to replace/ upgrade the crossovers? I opened the box to find a very pathetically small, and simple looking capacitors. I have looked online for replacement components, but am unsure of the best. Thanks

 

[gdmoore28]

Hi Thad, and welcome to AudioKarma! It's good to have you onboard. When you get time, you should go back to your profile page and list your city, or general area, so that we will have an easier time in helping you with any future questions you may have. Sometimes there are AK members in your area that will gladly help you first hand.

To replace the capacitors in your speakers, simply find the ratings that are printed on them - specifically, the mF rating - and then match them to the same rating on this site:

https://www.parts-express.com/cat/crossover-capacitors/292

There are other good suppliers for the capacitors, but PE has always been my favorite.

GeeDeeEmm