Fisher DS-826 Speakers

I bought these speakers for 20$ at a garage sale, which is more or less what they are worth. They were quite messy and full of wax, dust and oil, which I cleaned off. The grill had several holes and I decided it would not be worth spending money on new fabric. Their outlook is actually quite nice without the grills and even though they are far away from high-end, I enjoy looking at them, as the white woofer (12") and the red lines of the other two speakers (4" and 3") create a strong contrast to the dark cabinets.
These 80ies vintage speakers have a perfectly fine sound for their price and are some decent garage speakers. It is often criticized that the speakers have a very "warm" sound, which can have different explanations. According to audiokarma the legend is that Avery Fisher insisted on personally "voicing" all of the speakers. Apparently his personal preference was a very warm sound, one that today would be considered to have very rolled off highs. At the time it drove his engineers nuts.
I thought about selling them for 30$, but after having them in my apartment for several months, I decided to not give them away for now. However, as I plan to buy, repair and sell several other speakers in the coming months, I consider putting them back on craigslist in the nearer future.

Model: Fisher DS-826
RMS Power Rating: 10 Min. Watts  100 Max. Watts
Impedance: 8 Ohm Nominal
Reasonable Price Range (2012):  10-20$


If you need some further information about DS-826 speakers or the value of Fisher speakers/ electronics:
- DS-826 Speakers
- Fisher speakers/ electronics

SEE THE ORIGINAL REVIEW HERE

Day 214: Repairing vintage speakers and radios

It is not too difficult to restoreold audio equipment, as many pieces have only become very dusty, rusty or have scratches. It can be worth spending some effort on cleaning as there is a decent amount of customers for vintage radios and speakers.
With enough patience it should be possible to find an old radio or a set of speakers in a garage sale or somewhere else on the internet. I will look for something suitable on craigslist and check out some garage sales in the area.

If you are looking to find information about specific vintage speakers, you should check out vintage-speaker-review.com with reviews and tips on many different speakers (Acoustic Research, Fisher, JBL, and so on..)

So far, I have never worked with electronics and don´t have any deeper understanding of radios and speakers. I ordered three books in library to learn more about how to repair vintage electronics:
The first is the Antique Radio Restoration Guide by David Johnson, which is supposedly the best available literature for people who have not yet restored and repaired old radios.
The second is Old Time Radios! Restoration and Repair by Joseph Carr. I heard less positive things about this book, but I thought it might be wise to have more than one source, in case something appears to be unclear.
The last book is Troubleshooting and Repairing Audio Equipment (TAB Electronics Technician Library) by Homer Davidson. I ordered it, as it includes the diagnosis and repair of speakers, which is not content of the other two. According to customer reviews, this one might be rather for people with some prior understanding of electronics, but I will just try my best.