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Please suggest a Fisher integrated amp with good phono. I like EL84 but am open to more power. Budget is open. I can do simple rebuilds.
Ten or more years ago I had stock Fisher and Scott EL84 integrated's was not impressed.
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I pretty much agree with Mikey and Eli. I have rebuilt a number of EL84 integrated amps and receivers by Scott, Fisher, Sherwood, Eico, H-K, and too many others to list. I get to listen to all of them before shipping them out. Of course I only hear the first 20 hours or so and things do change for the first 50-100. That said, the little Sherwood S5000 is probably the best of the EL84 integrated amps I have heard. The Scotts are also very, very good. The Fishers are just fine for high level inputs, but as Eli has stated, they tend to have subdued bass response in phono. You are always wanting to turn up the bass control when playing a record. If you rebuild any good el34 amp properly you will be happy. That said, I would find an S5000 if you can, and failing that then one of the Scotts if you value phono. Also, none of them can come anywhere near a properly restored Citation I preamp for phono. At least not to my ears. It is an entirely different animal, but it also requires that you have a good power amp. The Sherwood and Scott phono stages are quite good though and will give you many hours of happy listening. Also, the 7591/7868 versions of Sherwoods are very fine amps and don't get enough love around here. The Scott 7591 based amp is also very good. The Fishers are all quite nice, but I do find the phono section lacking in bass response as was mentioned.
There are a number of sleepers out there too. The Harman Kardon Award series amps are very good and easily modded to make them considerably better if you add a small filament transformer and make a regulated DC filament supply for the phono and preamp tubes instead of hanging them off the cathodes of the power tubes as in the original design. It all fits under the hood and transforms a pretty good amp into a very good amp. I have done this on the A300 and A500 amps.
With any of these amps you need to really get in there and change all the little ceramic disc caps to good film caps. They often used poorer caps as couplers in the phono stage and also on the tone controls. If possible find an integrated that doesn't use PECs in the tone control and/or RIAA circuits. If they do, then try to rebuild them with discrete components on a small terminal strip. Usually you can make it all fit and it will improve things greatly.
All of the above is just my 2 cents from listening to and working on many, many pieces. Feel free to completely disagree. There is a debate on active vs. passive RIAA that pops up here from time to time. Fisher used active and most everyone else used passive. As I said, the Fishers all sound bass-shy in phono to me, but others may disagree. They certainly are not bass-shy on the line level inputs.
cheers,
Don
Rebuilt properly Fisher integrated's are damn fine. My X-101-C is one such example. Beautiful sounding with a great phono that responds extremely well to tube rolling. I also own a first edition, 7189 Sherwood S5000 and everything said about it is right. Big bold rich sound. Also loves tube rolling. The X-101-C uses 7591's, and I haven't compared Sherwood's version of their 7591/7868 amps although I'd love to. Bottom line I don't think you can go wrong with either amp.
Sherwood built nothing but integrated amps and receivers. They built one power amp that I know of which was the S-360. They concentrated all their effort into doing just those two things along with a tuner but when you do that,your going to have a well tuned product.
Scott and Fisher concentrated their efforts on some of the greatest power amps,preamps,and tuners ever made to this day.
Is your S5000 rebuilt yet? That will really make that amp take off.
Honest amplification is better than excessive 2nd order distortion anytime.
Yup I know that Mike. My use of the word "amp" is meant to include their integrated's/receivers.
My S5000 was rebuilt by Gordon Waters(GordonW on Audiokarma). Sounds very nice. The phono issues I've had in the past went away when I used shielded IC's, and 7025 tubes. It's as good as you have proclaimed. That said I really do enjoy my rebuilt Fisher stuff.
I have owned a few "Great Fisher Integrated" amps as well as the 500c, 500b, and 400 receivers. While they were all good sounding units, they were not great...... The Sherwood S-5000 is great!
Mikey is (as always) right on with his aassessment of the Sherwood S-5000 compared to others. I do not know about the S-5000 with 7868's or 7591's, or the S-5000 mk2 as I have not heard them.
I have had several vintage tube integrated amps over the years. Most all of them rebuilt/restored with good parts by well regarded techs and I can tell you this; None of them sounded as good as my stock S-5000 (currently on Mikey's bench getting the business).
Most recently I had a Fisher X-202-B that had been completely rebuilt by a very reputable tech along with a complete new tube set from Jim McShane; This thing couldn't compare to the S-5000. Does this mean that the Fisher cannot be enjoyable to listen to? NO.
I love baseball, and while I enjoy watching our local minor league team (Fargo/Moorhead Red Hawks) play on a nice summer night - It ain't Miguel Cabrera & Joe Mauer at Target field in Minneapolis. That's how I would summarize the difference between the Fisher and the Sherwood.
I could not even begin to tell you the technical reasons for the S-5000 sonic superiority as that is clearly beyond my grasp and better left to experts such as the aforementioned Mr. Samra (Mikey), and Eli Duttman. But, I can tell you from a enthusiasts perspective that the S-5000 sounds better in every meaningful way to every other amp I have owned.
Keeping in mind I do not ask this amp to operate out of its comfort zone by driving Magnepans or Thiels etc....
I recently found a very clean S-5000 with owners manual, schematic, in its original box and paid around $800 for it (7189 outputs, 5 preamp tubes, UL transformers). Many would consider this way too much to pay for a old amp, however, when you consider that it will hand modern tube integrateds such as, Prima Luna, Jolida etc. their ass(s), well, it's a bargain!
Understand that all this is nothing more than one mans' opinion. Good, better & best is, as we all know subjective, YMMV.
........I was a vegetarian for 15 minutes... until the main course.
Thank you for your detailed answer, exactly what I was looking for!
It's unquestionably the Sherwood for several reasons..Number one,it has Ultra Linear output transformers in the EL84/7189 versions of the S-5000.
The other is,they have a full five tube preamp,two tubes for phono,three for line stage.
The other thing is,they use 7199 driver as does the Scott but the Sherwood has the best execution of all three brands of integrated.I own all of them,and I have rebuilt and upgraded countless numbers of them and it's not even a close contest between them..This is my favorite which is also the largest in size of the 7189 Sherwoods and when they are properly modded and I will tell you what to do exactly,this amp will rival some of the best separates ever made within their power rating.
Honest amplification is better than excessive 2nd order distortion anytime.
That one looks familiar.
........I was a vegetarian for 15 minutes... until the main course.
LOL
It should..It belongs to you.
Honest amplification is better than excessive 2nd order distortion anytime.
Thanks mike, I forgot about this gem.
"Please suggest a Fisher integrated amp with good phono."
I don't know if that exists. Fisher phono sections are notorious for having poor bass extension. To be fair, the mid-range is FINE.
An amp from the Scott 299C/299D/LK72 bunch would give you the extra power. Try to find a specimen with a blown power trafo, as the price should be low. The Dyna ST70 replacement power trafo Triode Electronics sells can be adapted to the Scott integrateds easily enough.
BTW, scan the archives for my many posts about the hybrid tweaked RCA phono setup. That circuitry can solve all sorts of problems in refurbishing vintage units.
Eli D.
Thanks Eli.
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