Fisher Philharmonic model 292 P console.

I just picked up and have been using the last couple of days a Fisher console called the Custom Philharmonic model 292 P! It was made in 1967 and the Custom Cabinet is the Contemporary version and I believe the wood is Pine that has a dark brown varnish on it!The reason I think it is pine is that several friends of mine said the wood grain looked like pine,along with the fact that the letter at the end of a console model usually stood for the type of wood! I was hoping to find a service as well as an owners manual for both the Receiver and the Garrad-60 MK 11 turntable!The turntable came with a Pickerring Cartridge that is fine along with a good Needle/Stylus! I do not know the model of the cartridge,as I do not want to take and remove the headshell.Does anyone here have any ideals as to what Cartridge it may be as I truly believe it is the original cartidge when the unit was bought new! I would also like to take this time to say thank you to everyone here at AudioKarma who have helped me in the past and hope that someone here can help me again! I am willing to purchase originals or photo copies of the mauals as well.Brian a proud owner of another vintage Fisher!

The receiver is gonna be really hard. Rick Stout @ Stereomanuals.com may have it, but you'll have to dig a bit. TheRED1 should know the Separates model # for the receiver. FISHER used variations of their receivers in their Solid State consoles. I'm thinking probably a model 220, but I've been known to be wrong more often than not.

The Turntable only impossible..... go to www.Vinylengine.com, get registered (free) and look in the library under Garrard. They may have it.

The Cartridge is a variant of the Pickering V-15, a V-15F (for FISHER). It uses the same stylus as the general run of the mill V-15 cartridge. It should be a Dark Red color with either a Gray or black colored Stylus carrier.

The pics are from the 1967 FISHER CONSOLE Catalog from The RED1.





Pick out yours and let us know. From your description it's the 1st one, which is the Contemporary in WALNUT. Cherry, Maple, Walnut are the most prevalent types of wood / wood veneer used in Consoles / Furniture which is what consoles were considered back then. Pine is an oily wood, and has too many knots, etc., to make a decent veneer. It's mainly used in rough construction. Walnut has a fairly tight grain, and is stable color wise.

Please take some pictures of the overall unit and the control panel/tuntable. If you have the back off, some of the speakers would help too. Thanks

Larry

It is the first 1 shown and the cartridge is the V-15F ! Will work on getting the rest of the information soon!Brian

HOT DAMN, a LOWBOY!! SWEET! You may find the receiver is a 21-R or something like that. Fisher renumbered the receivers when installing in consoles. Other than not having an upper shell or case, and having a plug for turntable power, they are pretty much identical to the separates.

Thank you as we are enjoying it very much! I wanted an owners manual for the Garrad because the tonearm is set for 3 grams and I would rather track 2 to 2 1/2 grams instead!Also is there a special Stylus/Needle for just playing 78's with that Cartridge? I do have some 78's but do not want to use the same Stylus/Needle for both!The 2 other issues with this Fisher is that the Mutting button does not work and that I need to disconect the FM T antenna from Local FM terminals and conect them to the Normal FM so that certain farther away stations pull in better on FM like my Fisher 450 T Receiver does!I would also just like to have the Service and Owners Manual as I have both for my Fisher 450 T Receiver! As for apperance the Receiver and TurnTable look to be in almost Showroom Condtion(Very little way and tear!) with the Cabinet only showing a few light scratches that could easly be buffed out!Even the back of the Cabinet has the original FM T Antenna in like new condtion along with on the left side the instructions on how to disassemble the Receiver and the TurnTable from the Cabinet,while the right side has a Schematic for the Tuner Section of the Receiver! Brian

There is a 78 specific stylus. WWW.kabusa.com has the pickering/stanton stylus's. Prior experience shows the V15F tracks best between 2.5 and 3.0g. Below that and it gets muddy and mistracks. The service and owners manuals for the Garrard are @ Vinyl engine (I checked.)

As for the muting, look for a pot shaft, somewhere on the chassis. If it has one,that's good. If not you'll need the service manual to figure out which pot in the tuner section to adjust. Select a weak station. With the muting switch off it should come in, now turn the switch on. Turn the muting pot until the station just blanks out and give it another twitch. That should take care of muting. It doesn't help the further stations get pulled in, it blanks out the weaker stations signal. The 450T has a way better tuner than the Philharmonic. Selectivity on the Philharmonic was something like 2.3 or 2.4uv and the 450T was 1.7-1.9uv which is a lot better. Simplistic answer (how I understand the two) Selectivity is what you need (differentiating between two stations clearly), rather than sensitivity which is what you have tons of. You need more selectivity and less sensitivity. There's no cut and dry way to get it at home. It would need to be aligned by an alignment tech and possibly tweaked to bring up the selectivity (if it's not already maxed out, and adjustable).

Have you looked for a sticker or tag on the chassis itself for a Model #? The Manual will probably be listed under that or the equivalent separate receiver chassis. that will take some digging. FISHERDOC May have the Manuals, although his response times are LONG. You'll probably have a VERY LONG GRAY Beard before he completes a transaction for manuals. It took almost 9 months to get a manual from him.

Larry

Thank you again for all your help!As for the FM I still think I may get better results hooking the FM T antenna that it came with on FM Normal rather then leaving it conected on the Loca Teminals as my 450T prefers I do not use the FM tuner in the Local FM mode!On the 450T it did bring in a lot more stations,but it also made the ones that were weak in stereo become much stronger and cleaner in stereo!Also I think Fisher would have not labeled that FM terminal Normal if it was not where the FM T Antenna was orignally conected at the factory!I'm not looking to DX on FM just make some of the stations that come in now including some local stations,come in better then they are,and if by conecting the antenna to the other terminal causes to overload the FM band,I can always change it back!It reads corectly on the dial so I feel it has not become badly detuned it just acts like my Fisher 450 T in the local mode!Brian

Congratulations on your Philharmonic! I'm looking forward to photos. Larry was correct that the receiver chassis should be the 21-R in the '67. That was equivalent to Fisher's 220-T receiver. However, the model number you posted isn't correct for the Contemporary model which should be P-292-W (the "W" being the cabinet code for Contemporary/Walnut). The P-292-P was the French Provincial model - the first "P" indicating Philharmonic and the second "P" denoting the Provincial/Cherry cabinet. Fisher was inconsistent in the use of their cabinet codes; some indicating the wood used and some the cabinet style.

Here is a chart of Fisher's '67 receivers showing the specs for the 220-T (21-R):

Rick Stout @ Stereomanuals.com has the 220-t listed on his FISHER Repro's page 2.
http://www.stereomanuals.com/man/rep/fisher/fisher-2.htm

He also lists it in an original. http://www.stereomanuals.com/man/org/fisher-originals.htm

Both are probably Service manuals. The Repro's are VERY GOOD and in a lot of cases Better than the originals. Plus a few $$ less. Prices are very good and quality Unless you get one from an original owner, you will be hard pressed to find one. I can copy the one from my Royal Electra (R-494) and email it to you. Very similar with some minor exceptions (control location etc.).

Larry

Thank you all so very much for your help!!

I would like to take this time to say thank you to each and everyone who has helped me with my Fisher console!Laryy if you would email me a copy of your
Royal Electra (R-494) I would surely be happy!Also thanks for telling me about all the others here who know alot about Fisher from the Avery Fisher era!Red 1 the spec sheet is awsome! I always liked Fisher and Zenith products,but mostly owned used Zenith products as the Fisher stuff was always priced more then I could afford!But Zenith stuff has seen a major increase in prices over the last few years as well!Brian

Just thought I'd add this to the thread. Here are a few pics of a P-292 I picked up last weekend:









Higher res images can be found here - http://tinypic.com/a/2t9v4/4. I've included a few more pics as well.

Neat console. Welcome to the wonderful world of Fisher! As for the cartridge--I just upgraded to an elliptical stylus on the V15 that came in my console. I have to say--there is a noticeable difference from the conical. There is a .3 mil Stanton stylus for 78's that works in the Pickering V15, or at least it does in mine. I think tracking at 2-2.5 g may be doable but could be a bit light. The replacement stylus I just got recommends 3-5 g on a record changer.

The Pickering/Stanton V15 (ATE, etc) run best between 2.5 and 3.0gr no matter what type stylus on it. I run all mine between 2.5 and 2.75 as they sound best there. Also The Stanton 500V.3 is the current replacement cartridge (latest iteration of the V15 type).

Larry