Fisher TX-100 My pics + your input

JoeDotCom

Super Member
Hi Gang,

I have this very cool looking The Fisher TX-100, it is in awesome shape. From the reading i did, it looks like this is one of the first solid state pieces that Fisher made. I think I remember reading that a lot of early solid state gear was nothing really exciting... so maybe this is just a cool piece of history.

In my searching, I did not see any photos of the inside of any of The Fisher TX100 units that i found... so I will be taking the cover off of this one in the next few days to snap some shots for cyber-prosperity.

Anyone have any fun info on this unit (or early Fishers in general)? is this thing awesome... or just awesome looking? ;)

:music:


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I am going to post the full size images on my server
 
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It is a THE Fisher which would make it an early model back when Avery Fisher still owned the company. I have an early solid state receiver, The Fisher 700T that I bought back in 1967 and it is still doing duty today. You will notice the hamily heritage in the faceplate style and the knobs and switches. I bet it sounds good.

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Does it work? If so, how does it sound, to you?
I have only tried it with a pair of sacrificial headphones so far, but i was blown away at how clean/smooth the pots sound. Before i pressed play on my source, i twisted the volume knob a bit expecting to hear the LOUD SCRATCH, but I actually had to strain a bit to hear any scratching at first. :)

It is a THE Fisher which would make it an early model back when Avery Fisher still owned the company. I have an early solid state receiver, The Fisher 700T that I bought back in 1968 and it is still doing duty today. You will notice the hamily heritage in the faceplate style and the knobs and switches. I bet it sounds good.
Thanks, I corrected my initial post to call it "The Fisher" :)

Awesome looking unit you have there! It looks like mine is made to be used with a case as well (or maybe to be installed in a console)

Depending on how this thread goes and how the insides look (and how the DC offset looks)... i may give this guy a chance on some real speakers and see how it sounds. So far things are looking promising.

Also from what i read though, these are often in serious need of a recap before they will work "well". so I am wondering if i will be able to get a "real listen" to this without investing time/energy in updating it. we shall see. :)
 
Corrected my post too. Actually bought in 1967 as I think back-which is getting harder to do. I have mine hooked up to a pair of Boston Acoustics A70's right now, but have fed a lot of different pairs with it over the years with no complaints at all from the receiver. It just seems to put out effortless power.

You might want to post on the Fisher section of this forum to get some opinions from the experts on The Fisher. Back in their heyday, Fisher was considered by many to be the best equipment available-except maybe McIntosh of course.
 
Doh! I completely forgot about The Fisher section.

I don't want to be irratating and double post this... So maybe once I get my "under the hood" photos taken, i'll start a new thread over there. (and link this one to it.)

Sent via mobile
 
I haven't heard one of these early SS receivers or integrateds that I haven't liked. Still voiced by the people who voiced the tube gear.
You may end up surprised by what you hear.
 
You have a keeper but, before blowing it and the germanuim transistors get it to good tech for a recap. These early Fishers have a lot of caps that were sourced to Germany and sadly go out of spec often.

The TX-100 was an early SS amp, coming out after the TX-300. I have the 1st SS Fisher integrated, the 300 and the matching hybrid TFM-300 tuner. Both need caps so I do not run them but, when I got them and listened for a short time, they with a set of original Advents sounded vey good, much better than many other models from other makers in my inventory. The amp easily sopuned better than the Yamaha CA-610II I have but not as good as my Sherwood S-9500c, 1st gen SS integrated amp from Sherwood. I also had the 600 receiver that was made up of the TFM-300 and TX-300 and also needed caps. The matching tuner for your amp is the TFM-100, bettered at the time only by the very rare TFM-1000 tuner. The tuner is totally SS. Some years ago I had a chance to compare the 100 and 300 tuners and it was a toss up. The front end of the 300 is the famed Golden Cascade front end tube front end from the 500-c while the 100 uses a ss tuner sourced from the same German company that supplied what was considered at the time the best front end of any tuner, that used in the TFM-1000.

These early Fisher SS units are considered some of the best engineered and produced units from any company. A product of the German engineers Avery brought over from Germany after WWII and who engineered his reknowned tube units.
 
thanks audiodon and Brian! that is all very encouraging.

I am not sure if I have the money to invest in sending this out to be recapped, but at least I know to be cautious if i fire it up. Maybe once I get the top off, i will see if the recap is something I could do on my own. (I did a lot of work on my Pioneer SX-980's power supply with MarkTheFixers cyber-help.)
 
When you fire it up keep a finger on the power transformer. If it gets warm and uncomfortable shut it off immediately as it is a lay person's test for out of spec ps caps. Be very cautious as you can easily take ouit the germanium otput transistors and they are all but unobtainable and if fpound will cost you dearly.

These early Fishers are chuck full of transistors and are quite a challene to work on as the caps can be on both ides of the boards and there is little extra wiring to move the boards and lift them. Also, if digging in, consider cleaning the thermal grease off the outputs, being very careful not to damage the insulators as they most likely are mica. With age, the grease loses its thermal conductivity causing th transistors to overheat and blow.

Another issue that p[lagues these Fishers is the use of the pcb and wave soldering. Fisher was the US pioneer in using these technoloies and sadly, got the solder temperature wrong, too low, yielding cold solder joints. Many new units had to be repaired under warranty to resolder the joints and those that survived this initial failure period still tend to create problems today as the solder shrinks. Only way to make sure there are no issues os to touch up almost every solder joint that may require removal of the old solder rather than simply heating the joint and reflowing the solder hoping the rosin is still good enough to do its job.

These units are not for the amateur tech, think McIntosh SS after the 1st generation SS units. When working right they can compete with the likes of the top tier early SS units from anyone. I'd recommend and suggest letting a pro tech redo it and pick up some "lesser" units to practice on.

I know I sound pesimistic but, sadly I've seen too many of these early SS Fishers destroyed by a poor repair.
 
These units are not for the amateur tech, think McIntosh SS after the 1st generation SS units. When working right they can compete with the likes of the top tier early SS units from anyone. I'd recommend and suggest letting a pro tech redo it and pick up some "lesser" units to practice on.

Thank you again for yet another very helpful post Brian. You have given me much to think about.

I want to reread your post again when i have more time to digest it. (I am a little freaked out hearing this compared to early SS McIntosh gear which seems like it belongs on another planet from me.) :)

SO I have a lot to think about.

I did want to get back and post the pics of the inside that I took today. It looks awesome in there!!
 
Inside The Fisher TX-100

Inside The Fisher TX-100

there are the photos taken from the top


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The last four I re-shot with the flash on....

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I had one of those in college, along with a pair of Fisher 2-way speakers Fisher recommended for it among their line. It was my first solid-state set. I loved it. Gave the set to my nephew many years later. He used it for a long time, too.
 
Far easier to work on than my TX-300. Only the 1 board that looks like a challenge. A lot of electrolytics to replace but most look easy to work with. Resistors also look accessible. You will need a schemaic, though as it is loaded with PECs that will no longer be obtainable and internally contain caps and resistors. These you may need to build from scratch and hopefully the SM will have their schematics. These were a good idea from a cost cutting and production point of view but they guts go out of spec the same as any cap or resistor.

It looks like it has been worked on before and some of the solder joints look a might sloppy. Looks good that the original RCAs are there making it easy to cross referfence the oputputs. Hopefully, the other channel has an RCA that shows was substituted on the channel you showed. As they are plug-in, it makes it easier to pull, degrease, clean, grease and remount. As the small transisters are plug-in, you'll ned to pull each and clean the transistor lead and sockets. I found on my tfm-1000 that it had to be done about once a year or the noise level would increase.
 
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