Here's my latest acquisition.
1958 FISHER C-800 Contemporary in Mahoghany. GZ34 Rectified, Push Pull 7189, One 12ax7 for the preamp, and a 6sc7 for the Phono Preamp. Turntable is a Garrard RC-121Mark II running a GE RPX @ 4.5grams (lowest I could get it and still sound good without bouncing all over). It has been electrically overhauled with Nichicon lytics, Illinois yellow axial, and Cornell Dublier "DME" series radial film caps (the Main Filter caps are JJ 50ufx2/ 500v cans). The speakers are by Jensen, a 15" woofer, 8" mid, and a 3" tweeter. It sounds very good and with the limitations of the tweeter does get to 13.5K and then falls off precipitously. But due to the fact I have hearing that falls off above 12K, I don't hear it. So it's not a problem with me. It takes about a minute for sound to get to the speakers on cold startup due to the way FISHER designed the heater circuit for the phono tubes into the bias circuit (yes it's cathode biased). FISHER continued variations of this design all the way up into the X-202 series IIRC.
The tuner is very responsive in FM, picking up stations far away (>40 miles) on a simple Dipole. Selectivity is good but not up to 70's standards for mid level S.S. gear probably due to it being wide band. But for what it is, it's a very good unit. AM needs work, although it does get all the local stations it could be better.
A headphone jack would be a great addition to this unit for those times when SWMBO is listening to the TV and you've got your jazz station going or even a baseball game on.
The tone controls are more off / on than ramping up and ramping down in operation. I think part of it is the pots themselves and then the circuits are fairly basic too. But with the Contemporary being 1 or 2 off the BOTL I would think this is probably typical. I notice a similar operation in the Tone pots on my 1951 FISHER Coronet, so it might be the pots. It's not a big issue, and I'm not overly anal retentive or OCD about it. So they'll stay as is.
On an outside source or Radio you can crank it to 11. On Phono the tonearm starts to jitterbug at about 02:00 on the Volume. Which is plenty high as it is. Distortion hit's about there(02:00 volume) and it's a subtle ramp up to a flank bell by 03:30 or so).
Some will have the AUX input jack marked as TV and some Marked Stereo. The later serial'ed units are marked stereo, so you could use another unit as a FM STEREO Source ("B" CHANNEL) and input it into the C-800. You can do this also with the units marked TV. You would need a unit similar to either the C-810 (1959 Contemporary) or a 610 Consolette, or a Custom Electra III that had provisions in the receiver for stereo and a "B" channel output to an amp. You could also use a Stereo tuner, a stereo preamp and run to 2 amps, the contemporary being one of them. I haven't tried it out in this mode with my 610 yet, but will down the road.
So without further Ado................
1958 FISHER Contemporary (closed up)
1958 Contemporary
With the Front OPEN
