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Fisher XP7S - Where to start?

B

Bkylesmith90

New Member
Hey everyone, new to audio karma and new to Vintage speaker…hoarding

I just picked up a Goodwill find of Fisher XP7S for $10. Got home and tested them and they are pretty dead, very faintly hum only with the exception of one side was getting very low audio from a CD tested through my Pioneer SX-750 but i had to crank the receiver volume to even hear that.

Where do I start with these if I want to restore them? How do I know what needs to be replaced? Is it worth restoring this model? I found another blog of a Frankenstein speaker changing an XP7S Cabinet to Polk 7 components which could be interesting…thoughts?
 
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Check the overall condition of the cabinet, grill (if any), and binding posts Then I would pull each driver, noting polarity of the wiring, and check them with a multimeter for continuity. Placing a + and - probe on their corresponding driver terminals, they should read at least 4 ohms. If you don't get a reading (zero) the driver's dead. Find replacements or feasibility of repairing faulty or dead drivers (new woofer surrounds). At this point if you reach a dead end, time to re-evaluate if it's worth it to proceed. If you think it is, then remove the crossover and replace any electrolytic capacitors and cast resistors. Unless there's obvious signs of damage like burning, leave the inductors (coils of copper wire) alone as they rarely go bad or deteriorate. New internal wiring of at least 16-18 ga. and real binding posts should also be on the menu.

I would not try putting your Fisher drivers in the Polk cabinet or vice versa. Woofers are tuned to specific cabinet volumes and aren't usually interchangeable.

Overall, the XP-7's are OK but not worth much more than $250/pr. in really good operable condition.
 
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That’s really helpful thanks for the comment! Sounds like it would be worth buying some other testing equipment if I want to proceed, not sure it’s going to be worth it as I don’t want to go down a rabbit hole of cost if they’re shot but this gives me someplace to start testing.

homebrew said:
Check the overall condition of the cabinet, grill (if any), and binding posts Then I would pull each driver, noting polarity of the wiring, and check them with a multimeter for continuity. Placing a + and - probe on their corresponding driver terminals, they should read at least 4 ohms. If you don't get a reading (zero) the driver's dead. Find replacements or feasibility of repairing faulty or dead drivers (new woofer surrounds). At this point if you reach a dead end, time to re-evaluate if it's worth it to proceed. If you think it is, then remove the crossover and replace any electrolytic capacitors and cast resistors. Unless there's obvious signs of damage like burning, leave the inductors (coils of copper wire) alone as they rarely go bad or deteriorate. New internal wiring of at least 16-18 ga. and real binding posts should also be on the menu.

I would not try putting your Fisher drivers in the Polk cabinet or vice versa. Woofers are tuned to specific cabinet volumes and aren't usually interchangeable.

Overall, the XP-7's and OK but not worth much more than $250/pr. in really good operable condition.
Click to expand...
 
I see a bunch of capacitors that need to be replaced. The Fisher branded ones with the black body and red ends are notorious for failing. It looks like there are two there, one on top of the other and wired in parallel. The blue cap at the top of the pic and the gray cap at the bottom likely need to be replaced. Bad caps would explain why the drivers are nearly silent, including the woofer. I believe that the woofer circuit uses the Fisher branded caps.

See #3 for a crossover schematic, although the values in that post do not match those in your picture.

I would replace all the caps with capacitance values the same as what is installed. The voltage rating can be higher. For lowest cost, you can replace with electrolytic, non-polarized caps. You can move up in quality and cost with metallized poly caps. From there you can move up to boutique caps where the sky is the limit. Personally, I do not think those speakers are worth the very expensive caps (total cost in hundreds of dollars).

Check out Parts Express for crossover caps.
 
Old components in the crossover. The gray, black, and blue capacitors need to be changed, as well as the sandcast resistors. Just read the values on the capacitors, expressed in micro Farads (uFd). The gray one for example looks to be rated at 25 Volts, 25 uFd. The voltage is too low by today's standards. You want a capacitor rated at least 100 volts. And it may be necessary to parallel capacitors to reach the correct value. The resistors are also too low at 5 watts. Ten to 15 watts is better. Replace with resistors with the same ohm rating as the originals which look to be 4.7 and 6.8 ohms. Parts Express is a good source, as well as Erse and Madisound. My personal preferences for excellent performance at a reasonable price are the red Audyn Q4 capacitors and Jensen wire wound resistors from Parts Express.
 
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