Fisher speakers

[electra225]

I have my stuff out of storage and into the shop. Quite the mess, still, but I found my Fisher speakers. Pictures as promised:

[Firedome]

Just saw this, anything that says Fisher Studio Standard is post sale to Emerson (1969) and is probably post 1972-ish. Will do a bit more research and report back!

[Firedome]

OK it seems this is indeed post '72 when Fisher moved speaker production offshore after Emerson was bought by Sanyo.
Likely came as part of one of their better big black "stacked stereo" packages and was separated from that grouping at some point. Actual speaker production location or maker at that time unknown. The "classic" fairly well-regarded US made XP series ended around 1972, as mentioned before. I'd suspect that typically they'd be fine at normal volumes but bass would be flabby/boomy as opposed to good solid response below, say, 100 Hz that you'd get in an AR-3 for example. As always YMMV, but if they sound good to you where and how you intend to use them that's all that matters really.

[back-2-mono]

Those are perfect for the shop/test speakers. Mount 'em up high in the corners angled down.

[electra225]

That is basically what I'm going to use them for. I'll power them with a Marantz 2245 and use them for monitors when I process analog music media to digital. They are so heavy, I can't lift them to mount them high like you suggest. I plan to sit them in opposite corners of the shop, sitting on the floor, then go from there. I have a couple of those Radio Shack speaker control boxes, so I can feed the output from different amps to those speakers if I want to.

These Fisher speakers are rated for 110 watts. Wonder how they'd handle a Pioneer SX-1050?

[walyfd]

It's odd because, although Fisher was a TOTL audio company, their speakers were never highly regarded. One reason I prefer Fisher consoles is that Avery was involved in every aspect of their production so I'd like to believe that he signed off on my '61 Executive for sound quality. I also find it odd that nobody built a moving coil phono preamp worthy of the technology. Outside of RCA that employed the ESL/Ortophon MC Concerto cartridges, nobody had amps built for them.

My console has Jensens. Many audio guys prefer Klipsch. Etc. A friend of mine is a McIntosh fan and has McIntosh amps and speakers yet even McIntosh speakers aren't as highly regarded as AR or other brands.

I run my fisher 500B on Bozaks and I like them. They're mellow, smooth and fit in my living room. I think Bozak is really overlooked as a premium speaker.

[William]

I couldn't agree more, Walter. I had a pair of Bozak 302's and I really liked them. They got sold when I moved to my present location. At one time I also had a pair of McIntosh speakers and they were really disappointing. I later learned to get the most out of them you needed a McIntosh speaker EQ. that was especially designed to enhance the speakers. It sounds to me like McIntosh screwed up with the speaker design and then covered their butts by coming out with the EQ.

Bill

[electra225]

I had a set of 18" Peavey studio speakers that I REALLY liked. Those things would take all the SX-1050 with an equalizer would give them. There was an 18", a 15" and two horns. They were ugly, heavy and on casters, but, oh my, what a set of speakers when you like playing country music a little too loud. The bass was strong enough to literally cause injury, either to one's hearing or to things my wife had on shelves. I pushed my luck and the wife put her foot down, so they went.

[Firedome]

Rudy Bozak and Frank McIntosh were good friends and Frank tended to use Rudy's speakers when displaying his amps at audio shows, I have a pic somewhere of the 2 guys standing together at one of the NY audio shows around '58. That practice quickly stopped when Mc hired Roger Russell (RIP 2021) from Sonotone (cartridges) to design their speakers in the mid '60s. I've never cared for Mc's speakers all that much but speaker preference is very subjective, and their newer super expensive ones are pretty darn nice as they ought to be for 10 grand or whatever. I can go over to Audio Classics anytime and hear any of them. As for Bozaks, I see pairs of 302s for sale fairly regularly, probably because Mc was (and is) here, and usually at quite reasonable prices, couple hunnert bucks for a pair. They're nice but just too big for most people.

A few FIshers like XP10s are quite highly regarded. As I mentioned elsewhere the reason Fisher got into the speaker biz around 1959 is that they decided to phase out (over several years) using Jensen for consoles and make their own (actually Bill Hecht's United Speaker System made them), so figured that they might was well do component speakers too, a bit of an afterthought driven by Avery's desire to skim off that part of the market. Most hearing any of them now are probably hearing unrestored 40 yr old speakers.

[hermitcrab]

Man.... don't tell me those fisher speakers were any good... back in the day I bought a cheapo fisher stack system just for the CD player because it was right at the time CD's were making their entrance ...and it came with these exact speakers and the rack cabinet ... I gave it away once I got my pioneer system... I figured chepo stereo had to have cheapo speakers

[electra225]

How did they sound? I'm a ways yet from powering mine up, but that will happen in due course.

[back-2-mono]

I'm pretty sure those are Sanyo era speakers and are fine for test purposes.
Your SX-1050 will really lite 'em up due to their very high sensitivity.

BTW, did you get your 1050 going yet?

[electra225]

The SX 1050 still has a dead channel.

[hermitcrab]

How did they sound? I'm a ways yet from powering mine up, but that will happen in due course.

To me they sounded good , I think the fisher system I had claimed 50 watts per channel...

[electra225]

I don't know anything about the history of these speakers before I got them. They are rated at 110 watts. I have no idea if they would actually handle that much power or not.