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Vintage Fisher, What's best 500C/B or 800B?

I have the opportunity to purchase cosmetically mint units of the above at an estate sale. Each of these receivers work, yet must be upgraded and restored sonically. I know about the resto-paks, etc.; but which unit is best? And what individual or company would you recommend for complete restore. I missed out on a seemingly nice 500C unit on the A-gon recently...but just fell into the above estate sale. I am a bottlehead, but haven't really heard any of these since I was a child. I'd like to take a shot at one or two of them.
mikirob
davo50
16 posts
 
Can't help you with which one of those is better, but I recently had an X-100-B restored by Paul Grzybek of Tube Audio Design and I can highly recommend him. He did a great job and the amp sounds incredible.
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
According to a copy I have of a Fisher ad from that period, the 800C and the 500C were identical except that the 800C included an AM tuner section and the 500C did not. Perhaps the 800B and 500B differed similarly, except for the "B" versions being a little earlier.

According to an old bluebook I have, original list prices (not necessarily in the same years) were:

500B: $370
500C: $390
800B: $370
800C: $450

The 500C and 800C are indicated in the ad as having "a new Nuvistor-Golden Synchrode front end (for FM) affording far higher sensitivity, a wider overload margin, and a better rejection of spurious and imaging signals." Based on that, if you aren't particularly interested in having AM included my instinct would be to go with a 500C rather than an 800B, if that is the choice you have.

Regards,
-- Al
mikirob OP
955 posts
 
Thank you for your responses...it helps. I think I'm opting for the 500C based on the larger transformers and a few reviews I've seen since posting this question.
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