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I would like opinions regarding how these these two vintage receiver's stack up against each other. I "had" a Fisher 500c (all original and strong Telefunken 12ax7's) completely restored with new caps, bridge rectifier, new power tubes, cord, etc... My younger brother "had" some mid-fi solid state stuff (won't mention any names) driving his Paradigm Studio Reference 40v 3's. I mentioned to him that his electronics were vastly out classed by his speakers, and he was only hearing them at a fraction of their true potential. Hence, I offered to let him borrow my hot rodded Fisher 500c. He could'nt believe the space and imaging, not to mention the great FM reception. Fast forward a month- He dropped off a check for $500.00 (which my wife promptly cashed) along with his mid-fi solid state gear in trade. Now I am without my restored vintage receiver. He certainly paid a more than fair price, and I am happy for him and his new found sonic bliss. I would like to buy and rebuild another 500c or a Mcintosh 1500 or something similar. Whatever it turns out to be, it must have a phone jack for my AKG 701's.
Follow Ups:
Like Rich says,the mac 1500 does have a SS preamp but,it isn't necessarily a bad thing.The one I had recently rebuilt,I put in better transistors with a wider bandwidth and they don't run the transistors that hard to where they really damage the sound. FWIW,they actually have excellent detail and you are still going thru a very nice tube output stage with which the combination of the two,puts out an accurate,low distortion,wider bandwidth signal and its not harsh or dry in any way.
Gerry Manion has owned both, and I have several 500c and one 800c along with a pair of ma230s. I would gladly trade my clean 800c with wood cabinet,for a decent mac 1500.
If the power supply waveform isn't pretty,neither is the sound in most cases.
Oh, you are the guy hoarding the MA230s. No wonder they are so hard to find ;).
....stock, that is. We used to pull the trannies in the old days. Just horrible. I wouldn't wish one on any person with hearing. Having owned hundreds of pieces of vintage gear it has the dubious distinction of being at the end of the line.
I used to sell a lot of Mac and the 240 is quite forgettable, but nothing like the hybrid integrated. Yuck!
Need a Mcshane rebuild kit with the doubler caps and extra decoupling and ground scheme and selective resistors in the phase splitter. Talk to anyone that has rebuilt an mc240 or had one rebuilt with Jim's kits. We use paper in oil caps(k40s) and a couple film caps but the difference is so phenomenal from stock that,you increase the performance of EVERY aspect of that amplifier.
Now,the 230 responds well to the cit 5 kit but you also need to change the 12au7s to 6cg7s and,you need to recap SS preamp board with film caps and oilers and non polar muse caps.I also put in hexfreds but thats a matter of taste.
If the power supply waveform isn't pretty,neither is the sound in most cases.
nt
Sorry I have been traveling and just catching up. Mikey is correct I too had my doubts about the solid state / Hybrid aspects of my Mac1500 to the point that while I probably would of done the rebuild of a Fisher 500 or 400 myself I deferred and sent the 1500 to Mike as he had done MA230 rebuilds in the past and claimed the solid state section was not a problem and sounded excellent. Since it came back from Mike it has been fantastic and Mikey did offer to trade one of his rebuilt Fisher 500's for my Mac 1500. Fortunately I got to listen to the 1500 first and sorry Mike it's not going anywhere : <}. We still have some fine tuning to do with the bias circuit but that is just a resistor change to accommodate modern 7591's. FWIW So far I have had very good luck with EH7591's and not so good with JJ's (don't bother there are just too many issues with the JJ's)
Regards, Jerry
The 1500 has a solid state preamp and tube tuner and power amp. The receiver later was converted to a solid state power amp as the 1700. The 1500 is a really nice receiver but the preamp is not quite as up to speed to the power amp and tuner. The Fisher is more balanced as to all sections. For that reason the Fisher is probably the better choice. I think the 1500 is actually less expensive to buy so the final price including going through them favors the MAC.
An alternative to the Fisher is a Sherwood S8000 (FM) or S7700(FM-AM). The specs are slightly better for the S8000. I found the 8000 to be a hands down winner when going up against a 500-C. Other who have commented on having an opportunity to pit them against each other have made similar observations. As the S8000 is less sought after as is most Sherwoods and hence, relatively inexpensive compared to a 500-C of any Fisher, the total cost also favors the Sherwood. The S8000 is a combination of the S3000 tuner plus the S5500 integrated amp so you may want to search on them to see what persons think as to their performance.
Brian
you are absolutely 100% on the money in that the S8000 is the hands down,kick ass winner of all three mentioned. So much thought had gone into the sherwood from copper cladding on parts of the chassis, to the buss bar ground,to the 6eu7 tubes used, and to the class they ran the output tubes in, was all SUPERB!!!!.
All anyone has to do is listen to a nice up to snuff,S-8000,and that will end your search for looking for a better receiver. Nuf Said!!
One more receiver I am really fond of is the HK Festival,HK260. Even tho it has a doubler,the layout is very nice and I like the way the controls are mounted away from everything. It always has very very nice iron!!
If the power supply waveform isn't pretty,neither is the sound in most cases.
Hi, geezerrocket:
I think that the 500-C might be a better choice than say, the McIntosh 1500. Doesn't the 1500 have a solid-state front-end? The 500-C is well known for its great FM stereo sound and is just a great piece of gear. I have never owned a 1500 to restore, but I might be interested to know just how easy it is to perform these various tasks on, all things considered.
If you were here in the SF / Bay Area, I would have you over to see some of my Fisher receivers, now under restoration or completed. Normally, I change out the majority of the caps, both coupling and electrolytic and update the power supply, appropriately. However, lately, some of these old sets seem to revert to MONAURAL FM operation after my restoration work is done. Such a situation is quite new to me, since I have previously worked upon over twenty such sets over the years and this is the first time they turn into monaural receivers. It is probably caused by a combination of lots of weak front end tubes and need of a proper FM alignment. In any event, I just changed out two more caps inside the FM Stereo Multiplex sub-chassis on one 500-C, and let me tell you one thing: the difference between the way that FM section sounded before and after is quite astonishing. One was a .047 mf cap at about 400 volts and the other one was a .0047 at about 250 rated volts or so.
BIG DIFFERENCE, not to mention changing out the 1 mf electrolytic in that sectiion. Not to do so is a mistake in my opinion.
I now own two 500-B's, two 500-C'S and two 800-C's.
So, as much as I love Mac gear, I also am quite fond with the Fisher tube receivers and love their sound, once the parts are upgraded. To use one in unrestored condition is not the way to enjoy them at all, particularly when considering that the parts in them would be at least 45 years old by now and on the average, the bias voltages in a set with an original bias capacitor (2 x 1000 mf @ 35 vdc) and an original selenium full-wave rectifier, will normally yield a very low negative bias voltage of only about -14.0 volts dc, when about -21.5 vdc is optimal these days.
Richard Links
Berkeley, CA
I have a 500C that I lost the mpx on
Reverting to mono is not in the front end. It's in the mpx.
Do you have static and screaming in the stereo mpx mode?
Check your b+ voltage on the mpx tubes. whoa!
Please let me know the results.
I have not had the time to go back into mine to straighten it out.
Works great on mono and Stereo automatic. Mpx voltages are off.
Anything can be fixed. I think a resistor has to be bad or upgraded because of the extra b+ current. The current comment is my theory and not a proven fix. I'm just
When I get back in there I will get the supply voltages to the mpx back to normal and I think all will be well.
I upgraded the power supply too and did it right like you have. reading 300V on the tube is obvious it's wrong. Work from there
Thanks Richard. I kind of wanted the Binghamton Big Blue for the "cool" factor, but I knew the Fisher would be damm tough to beat. Since you are quite experienced in Fisher restoration I was wandering if you could recommend a complete kit with instructions. The kit I bought 4 years ago was from Vacuum Tube Valley from a man named Charlie Kittelson who, I have been told, has since passed away. Besides the kit did not come with any instructions so a tech friend of mine (who has since retired and moved away) ended up doing all of the work. There are a few things I would do differently this time like address in-rush current, a TKD volume pot, and beef up the capacitance. One thing that I know I will be doing is ordering some decent 12ax7's and swapping them out with my brother's Telefunken's when he's not around - I laugh my evil laugh he he ha ha ! Thanks, Stacy.
Hi, geezerrocket:
I just wanted to mention that I knew Charlie Kittleson personally and over many years, and I was totally shocked when I received news of his suicide last year. There was no obituary posted anywhere that I was aware of, which struck me as most unusual.
Charlie really should have included at least some basic instructions with his "restoration kit". This stuff is quite basic, actually, except for "hot-rodding" the tuner by changing the time constant (not particularly recommended) and perhaps other power supply tweaks, about which I know little or nothing. I do know that Sheldon Stokes provides a nice board to completely replace the majority of the powre supply componentry, but I have not used that product yet. As long as the rest of the larger electrolytics are still working or testing well, that is okay by me. Besides, if you know how, you can remove the originals and restuff them with fresh caps inside and then reinstall on the chassis.
I stick with the basics: replace all coupling caps with equivalent values and slightly higher voltage rated parts, replace all small electrolytics and always observe proper polarity! The same goes for removing and substituting for the original selenium rectifier. You can use a full-wave bridge rectifier of equivalent value and I believe that part should have been in your kit from Charlie the K. If he did not include 10-ohm 1/4 watt "safety resistors" for the 7591-A tubes (cut the hard wire from pin 5 to ground and insert them in-place of the hard wire), then you should at least do that. When the new full wave bridge rectifier is installed the voltage will increase, so you need to change the normal 5.6 K Ohm dropping resistor attached on one end to the dual 1000 mf @ 35 vdc bias filter cap to something about half that value, but calculate what you need to arrive at -21.5 volts DC on the bias.
All of this stuff has been discussed quite frequently in this very forum, so feel free to research the topic!
Also: Jim McShane is an expert on these and other matters.
Lately, I have been removing and then opening up and cleaning out the original dual 1000 mf cap I just referred to. I re-stuff it with fresh caps of 1000 mf @ 50 wvdc each. (I have a huge bag of them if anybody else out there needs any!) Always replace the re-stuffed cap into the original paper insulation sleeving and then into the metal retaining clip. Insulate more with black tape if you wish, but isolate it from ground in that clip or you will be blowing lots of ugly smoke rings!
Please read up on the rest. The schematic is commonly available elsewhere.
Just as an aside: My personal experience with these various Fisher receivers is in favor of the overall sound of the 500-B, rather than the 500-C. But, the "C" offered so much more in the way of extra features: dedicated headphone jack on the front panel (with reversed channel orientation, by the way!) and that nifty remote speaker selecting switch.
The phono section is decent and could stand improvement, as others have noted. There are some of those weird yellowish encapsuled networks in the 500-C, which I believe have something to do with the tone circuitry or possibly the phono circuit. If that is true, if you were patient enough and could stand bread-boarding them as replacements, do so!
Richard Links
Berkeley, CA
The 500c by a long shot.
That was my opinion as well until I received the rebuilt Mac1500 back from Mikey Samra (and I have owned both the Fisher 500C and B models in the long distant past). I really had to be convinced as my original intent regarding the 1500 was trade it for a Fisher 500c or 800 when the restoration was completed especially considering the 1500's Hybrid design and it not having the McIntosh Biafler wound Unity Coupled output Transformers either. Now having lived with it a few months the only advantage I would give to the Fisher (500C Model) is in Mono FM sensitivity as the Fisher multiplex can be problematic as it ages. The phono preamp is nothing special in either receiver but quieter in the Mac. Also interesting is that the early Mac receivers were never the apple of Frank McIntosh's eye which is why they were labeled "Mac" and never carried the full McIntosh Brand name.
Regards' Jerry
Stock with old part's my sherwood s 7700 kill's my 500c.
Moded my 500c will sound close to my sherwood with the exception of the very highest frequencies.
Try to update a sherwood and you will love a fisher in comparison.
The sherwood is just plain in another level of diffuculty includeing few have posted rebuild pic's with explanation's of what was done and why.
You can find fisher rebuild kit's with instruction's and pic's on the net.
Way more activity in posting too.
Now the apple of my eye was and is the 1500 mac.Beautiful!
I can't see how a mint mac could ever be put behind a fisher in rank?
Mcintosh was building stuff on another level imho.I own a mac 1900.
i am very happy to see that you guy's think the stuff i bought instead of a mac 1500 is better:)I bought well:)
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