THIS VINTAGE TUBE AMPLIFIER STILL AMAZES
Recently, thank to the kindness of one of my friends (Thank you Max :) ) I had an opportunity to couple my loudspeakers with a very rare amplifier, built on El84 tubes. It is The Fisher SA-16, at least fifty years old. I was very curious how such an old gear with the drivers deriving from the same period of time. The austere external look makes me think it wasn’t designed for home use.
The binding posts or rather binding screws offer option to plug in four, eight and sixteen ohm loudspeakers. So I screwed on the speaker cables under the digit eight, plugged CD player – something that this one maybe have never amplified, then I plugged in a special transformer to adjust power to European standard and finally switched on power on power strip. The amplifier itself does not have a main switch – Sic!
There are two mini potentiometers for volume control – one per channel so you have an additional fun to set them evenly. A CD into the player and the sound starts to fill the room.
While the tubes were warming up the sound was getting deeper. It turned out that this oldie creates delightful sound, although no technician had taken care about it for a long time. However some small technical inspection would be well suited. Two tubes El84 per channel allow for 15 W of power. This in connection with high efficiency loudspeakers is far enough to fill fifty square meters room with good quality sound.
For a few days this amp and Eva loudspeakers were treating us with its musicality. Anyway I was warned that this is good gear.
The American product made up in the era when the valves ruled. The Fisher company was created in New York in forties, so in the same time as Marantz, H.H. Scott or McIntosh and was renewed by its extraordinary quality products. What’s interesting its founder Avery Fisher was a violinist. Well today these are very rare collectible pearls.
