Stereophile review- Fisher 500 C

The McIntosh MAC1500 is a better receiver, having heard them both in a double blind test. It goes lower and higher! If you've never heard FM radio on a good tube receiver, do it NOW!! My McIntosh MR71 has such a great sound compared to solid state tuners or receivers. Heck, my old KLH Model Eight blows away current tuners!! Once you discover tubes, it is very hard to go back... If not impossible.

I owned a renovated Fisher 400 for a long time (sold it recently). It has a very warm, lovely, euphonic sound, very much in the style of older tube amps. Listening to FM classic music through that piece makes it real clear why classic used to be popular on FM, and now generates a small audience (via solid state).

Listening to the 500C through my Talon Peregrine X Mark IIs is simply an wonderful experience given not only the age of the unit but in, many respects, absolute terms as well. The spaciousness with efficient great speakers (mine are 95db efficient) is superb. Evaluating equipment that is going on nearly half a century old first depends on being sure the equipment is tuned up, maintainance done and good quality and strong tubes installed. It also depends on system synergy, musical preferences etc. I thought there would be far more faults in the unit. I just sit back and enjoy some Miles Davis or Mozart. We have some really great, non-compressed FM Stations here in Madison, Wisconsin including www.wort-fm.org and the Fisher 500C really convey's the music and voice (e.g., for example The Prairie Home Companion on NPR) in a lifelike, "you are there way" that evades nearly all solid state units.
It is amazing to see how much audio and other products have slide backwards via successful marketing campaigns to sell us cheaper stuff that is easier to manufacture and/or give convenience. But the convenience (as in what MP3 is to music or McDonalds is to food) misses the point of the stuff (LPs to CDs, CDs to MP3) Tubes to early solid state, analog to digital tuners etc). There is something about not expecting much and being very pleasantly surprized. There is also something, negative, to an entire generation growing up assuming convenience is the point of living and misses the point of things or the way things are enjoyed that can elevate the experience of living but require something from you.

What I found interesting about the Stereophile review was the reviewer's surprise that this piece was reasonably competitive with his modern gear. Which makes you wonder if there's really been as much sonic improvement in amplification as we all tend to think there has. We get on the escalator of new/better/latest-and-greatest and we think we're making significant advances, but maybe there is something illusory about all of the "improvement".

here's one great fallacy of the 500c.

its 40 yrs old. ---would you buy a car that's 40 yrs old even if its almost as fast as a current sports car?

another problem: some of the tubes are out of production.

the 500c is a hobbyist piece and a audiophile status piece, but reference caliber or great alternative for modern stuff it is not. $600 could be much better spent on a used integrated amp made in the 90s (think bryston, belles, MF, etc).

rhyno