Vintage Fisher Tube stuff . . . audiophile or not?

[ab2forever]

There is a difference between the audio engineer and a guy who likes to listen to music.....
you get a list of various pieces of equipment or measurement methods and a half dozen people saying "my ears".

I have huge respect for Avery Fisher.
Coming from a musical family, he did a tremendous amount for music and musicians in the USA.
He was also a violinist.

For him, it was all about music LIVE, and no difference between the AF as engineer and the AF who listened to music, played it,or sponsored others playing it.
He wanted to make it accessible to everyone.
That is why his equipment can be so good.
It's such a pity there are so few today with his vision.
People confuse bling with in depth quality.

As for Scott.
It appears a similar ethos was in place for what was after all, the arrival of stereo broadcast radio.
You only have to look at the size of output transformers in a Scott 299x to know this was and still is an amplifier that performs well.
Once the silicon chip came in, and the high performance Opamp, of course a noisy FM stereo valve receiver like Scott was doomed.

What I like about this old equipment is the ability to make nasty harsh compressed digital mpeg music sound acceptable.

As for the "my ears" bit.
One of the frightening things to see today is just how BAD people's ears measure.
Lots of these people think they have superb hearing, and can do all kinds of stuff with it.
Often you will see such people running "hi end" audio shops, and are clearly unable to differentiate anything of quality.

It's quite clear the mpg material is damaging young people's abilities to hear certain key frequencies to an extent of measurable deafness.
Anyone male and over 35, is in any case going slowly deaf,particularly to frequencies over 8khz, but to see freq response deaf symptoms turning up in kids under 10 is of major concern.

 

[johnblue]

I'm in the camp of honest reproduction. My testing grounds are a recording studio, where speakers and amplifiers are designed to tell me the truth. I want to monitor the program material.

Tube amps can't do that for me on a professional level, (at least my homebread stash currently can not) but this is still what I think defines hi-fidelity, its a pursuit to accurately reproduce. I also think you have to take into context the time, and I think most of the early fisher stuff, at the time it was new was pretty solid for what we call audiophile today, it was like that back then.

If its the type of gear, where people bring thier friends around to listen and show off and talk about how good it is and how well it performs, then that's audiophile. If people measured it, and judged it on its measurements, (back then) its audiophile. How well it performed is going to be determined by component cost and design, but if the company was aiming for the best fidelity at any given price point, I would respect it as high fidelity audiophile equipment of its vintage. Its about the commitment.

I think its fair to judge fisher or any other company on their dedication to this philosophy, I respect the heritage of Hi-Fi during the tube amp era because you can see in hindsight the race to outperform. I'm not positive fisher gear exemplified this attitude, but it seems to me it did. I assume they were doing the research and development, and were competitor in the race. This is why I respect the company, they are part of that history.

At some point with SS it seemed home stereo marketing drove the consumers into an enhancement state of mind, or a power state of mind... I'm not positive what it was that happened, but I know I like my gear to have an attitude of accurate reproduction, anything else is just superfluous for me.

 

[ab2forever]

I'm in the camp of honest reproduction.
Tube amps can't do that for me on a professional level,....

At some point with SS it seemed home stereo marketing drove the consumers into an enhancement state of mind, or a power state of mind... I'm not positive what it was that happened, but I know I like my gear to have an attitude of accurate reproduction,...

Funny it's for the exactly the reasons you described I moved back into working on valve amps after a long gap of several decades.
I need serious dynamic range with live music, natural acoustic, uncompressed source material often using B & K microphones to get the flat frequency responses.
It is never from a studio, which invariably will have added artificial reverb to compensate.

Now I listen to all those overblown SET, mega expensive Yoshino or high end systems costing 10s or 100s of USD, and they all sound absolutely terrible compared with my own home made system, which has some decent old design input.

Funnily enough it also measures very well, below 0.1%THD, which extends down at full power to well below the audible range.
The whole system has been put together with the express idea of being able to hear ALL the faults in any recording.
It does that pretty well, so that we can nail it every single time.

Some people said it can't possibly do that, then I showed them why it does, and then they realised in fact they were wrong.

I am of course waiting to see what tranformation happens when the dynamic range is increased further by adding 2 more amp channels per each front channel, taking it up to close to 200W per channel with active x-overs.

That would be the equivalent of 3 of the Fisher SA-1000 stereo amps per front stereo channel,
(ie. 6 channels total!) & with far lower distortion.

From what I can see right now,a typical Current Price is: $3,888.88
up from the original USD $329.50 (1963), so not a bad investment either.

I'm sure the old man Fisher would be delighted with such an idea.

 

[Patrice B]

Wow. It's not wise or mature to say such things about someone you don't know anything about. I'm familiar with the field, I'll leave it at that.

I've put this member on my ignore list: aggressive posts in a few threads yesterday...

 

[ab2forever]

...unless someone keeps their ears "calibrated" by regularly attending live concerts of all kinds, how do you know just who's "sound" definition is right?
Without a measurable base to start from, the idea of "good" sound can become very distorted in itself over time.

A recording is supposed to depict the original sound as when it was recorded or was meant to be heard.
Theoretically, the equipment should start reproduction from that point, and only modify it because you intentionally choose to do so.
But if it can't reproduce the original performance accurately to begin with, then how can it be called a High Fidelity system at all? It loses that argument by definition of the term alone.

For me, I need both. I need solid, measurable performance as a well grounded base to build from.

The old equipment was wonderfully designed and built.
It has a base of performance to build from that is lacking in many of today's high end pieces of equipment.

There is some wonderful equipment produced today as well.
But, with some well though out up-grading to inject today's best engineering knowledge and components -- done without gutting all the performance the unit originally had -- the older equipment can produce truly stunning results.

Dave

I have to say as usual, Dave's statement stands the test of time.
It's hard to imagine it was 7 years ago.

I don't need to comment any more.
It's right "on the ball."

 

[Pio1980]

A number of better sound audio factories were founded by music lovers that wanted something better than was generally available, and/or to simply share the joy of hearing good music well reproduced. Some were partnerships of music lovers and perfectionist engineers, no better example than Saul Marantz and Sydney Smith.

 

[triode17]

Schmaudiophile. I like that.

I have never been all that thrilled with Fisher stuff. It seemed to straddle the line between commercial and serious audio. I thought Scott was a cut better but their stuff varied a lot. Those were subjective opinions; today I am far less fussy and am happy with sound that is clean. I just listened to some 78 rpm records and thought they sounded pretty good. I'm using an Onkyo TX-8511 with some ancient AR-3 speakers.

The reason I did this was to use two turntables. I took an old Kenwood receiver out of the closet and am using it only for the phono preamplifier. Now I can switch tables without messing with plugs. I still have work to do on the setup but it's working.

"I have never been all that thrilled with Fisher stuff" I'm with Bob on this. I have an X100-2 integrated amp. and even after it's rebuild, there is a certain high freq. dullness to it's sound, dynamically. On the bench it measures fine, but those are static measurements. The tube magic happens while the equipment is being played. My HH Scott LK-72, LK-48 both sound better.
Tubeboob - As far as Audiophile goes, let's look at Webster's definition : a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction You are using the word as an adjective, to describe the equipment while it's really a noun, to describe the person who enjoys the sound. To further impale thought, audiophilia is in the brain of the beholder. Some are happy with a $100 system, some only a $100k system.

 

[gadget73]

Thats the Fisher house sound. Some people call that dull, some call it warm. Depends on your preferences I suppose. Pair them with horn speakers that are a little shrill and it rounds out very nicely.

 

[ab2forever]

audiophilia is in the brain of the beholder. Some are happy with a $100 system, some only a $100k system.

Nah!
The $100 system users are usually orchestral conductors and musicians.
They got a semi decent system off Ebay and can't even wire it up right or prefer it in the car.
They don't care how it sounds and they stick the speakers on the floor or drive a cabrio.
I know lots of great musicians who fit into this bracket.

The $100k system users are ignorant ego trippers who claim they know all kinds of things and share their mania with others. The only thing that matters is money.
They're usually incapable of knowing if the room they filled with this bloated incompatible junk connected with pure silver speaker wire even works properly, so they regularly change bits and pieces of it, to show off.
All they want is to have the ego further bloated by the love of money, image, and their approval by others.

The local orchestra conductor fits into the 2nd category, which is why he hires Sony music at enormous cost to record his orchestra, who then make an absolutely crap job of it, and even borrow our equipment to do it.
The 2nd category people can have their ego massaged with signed copies of this sh..t using artifical reverb on vinyl.
The product and recording reviews are all done by people who are suitably compromised to make the whole shambles credible and the whole show & mediocre cycle is self perpetuating.

It's quite normal to want to be different from both categories but mavericks are either not tolerated or are regularly locked up into some cupboard or other, where you can hear muffled yelling going on from inside.

 

[Selmerdave]

^ My guess is you fit in the "sound engineer" category, you know what we say about you, right?

 

[RS Steve]

For those that have never listened to a properly working X-202 amp, or TA series receiver paired with speakers designed for tube equipment, should do so before lumping all Fisher equipment into a general category. These offerings do not really fall into the "rolled off " typical explanation for Fisher equipment.

 

[ab2forever]

^ you fit in the "sound engineer" category, you know what we say about you, right?

I don't really care what you say about anything, so long as you continue to listen to the results of what people like us do, that is all that matters.

Some of us just try to evaluate and monitor what we do, so we don't ever make the same mistakes twice.
We are always listening and learning.
That's what counts.

 

[Selmerdave]

Unfortunately I do have to work with and listen to the results of ego-centric engineers more often than I'd like.

 

[RS Steve]

Since I see between the two of you that you have a combined total of only 537 posts, we try to avoid these types of negative posts on AK since they do no service to the original topic. PM's work great for that though!

 

[ab2forever]

we try to avoid these types of negative posts on AK since they do no service to the original topic.

I have no idea what the comments were for or aimed at.
I said what I thought of Fisher and his ethos clearly enough, and he delivered it making his money out of audio, and ploughing it back into real musicians such as,-

Murray Perahia, Lynn Harrell
Yo-Yo Ma
Emanuel Ax
Horacio Gutiérrez
Elmar Oliveira

I had another from a well known industrial professional
"All push-pull valve amplifiers sound the same".
Same blanket nonsense statement of course, and when challenged rapidly falls apart.

If you don't agree with garbage, then it's right to state it's garbage.
Unfortunately in these days when it's politically correct that everyone has a so called valid opinion, then it's politically incorrect to state it's garbage when it is.
That leads to total chaos.

I don't think any debate about an audio system should lead to chaos, but it sure does lead to the audiolunatics claiming they can hear the "sound stage", and all the other garbage terms that have been invented to charge 350USD for one make of 12AX7 compared with another.

Money, ego tripping, & garbage.
Not everyone has a valid opinion QED.

 

[biscuithead]

I have no idea what the comments were for or aimed at.
I said what I thought of Fisher and his ethos clearly enough, and he delivered it making his money out of audio, and ploughing it back into real musicians such as,-

Murray Perahia, Lynn Harrell
Yo-Yo Ma
Emanuel Ax
Horacio Gutiérrez
Elmar Oliveira

I had another from a well known industrial professional
"All push-pull valve amplifiers sound the same".
Same blanket nonsense statement of course, and when challenged rapidly falls apart.

If you don't agree with garbage, then it's right to state it's garbage.
Unfortunately in these days when it's politically correct that everyone has a so called valid opinion, then it's politically incorrect to state it's garbage when it is.
That leads to total chaos.

I don't think any debate about an audio system should lead to chaos, but it sure does lead to the audiolunatics claiming they can hear the "sound stage", and all the other garbage terms that have been invented to charge 350USD for one make of 12AX7 compared with another.

Money, ego tripping, & garbage.
Not everyone has a valid opinion QED.

Nanny-nanny-boo-boo...
My kids (3 and 5yo) were playing in the sandbox yesterday: " I don't like your shovel " says the 3yo... " Your opinion doesn't count because you know nothing about shovels" says my 5yo and kicks sand at her brother...

Stop kicking sand.

 

[larryderouin]

Nanny-nanny-boo-boo...
My kids (3 and 5yo) were playing in the sandbox yesterday: " I don't like your shovel " says the 3yo... " Your opinion doesn't count because you know nothing about shovels" says my 5yo and kicks sand at her brother...

Stop kicking sand.

ROFLMAO!!! That sound exactly like my Grandchildren!!!

Sand Kicking will garner the attention of MOM or DAD (Moderators), and the guilty party will spend time on the "TIME OUT CORNER", or be taken out behind the woodshed, depending on whether Mom or Dad is P.C. or OLD SCHOOL!

 

[johnblue]

^ My guess is you fit in the "sound engineer" category, you know what we say about you, right?

What do you say? Popcorn

 

[Pio1980]

Too bad that this thread is circling the bowl instead of engaging informative discourse.

 

[Djcoolray]

Audiophile is a person that understands accurate recreation of sound.....

If it actually sounds like a piano in the proper key, in the proper tone then it is an audiophile sound. But, if you have no instrumental musical experience, how can a person know what they are listening to. You go to a concert after concert and pay attention to the tonal quality of the sound and buy yourself a better than average EQ and eventually come upon the correct adjustment. Equipment is not audiophile and never was. Monkey see monkey do just has people repeating stupidity. All a person has to to is repeat an idea and some dummy will believe it because it servers that persons purpose. Look how many people are consuming chemicals without caring....just because someone says it's not this or that and someone believes them. The point is the sound and the tonal qualities that make it an accurate representation of the original recording. Tube, SS or even digital, it does not matter. All that matters is that the music actually sounds like musical instruments and I'm not talking about being able to identify musical instruments either. To be able to identify the proper tones coming from the chimes in the background instrumentals, a horn playing the key of G...and it takes allot more than just buying something and saying....I like it ! There are old audio-video receivers from the nineties that are sonically incredible due to their accuracy in tonal qualities compared to allot of equipment that is older and newer. Being a consumer buying equipment only puts money in someone else's pocket. There in no guide to buying equipment that has the best sound because your ears are not the same as everyone else. Stereo equipment is only a tool....