Fisher FM-200-B

Half a microvolt of quieting through a 72-ohm antenna - this is the tuner that made Fisher's own advertising ask whether it was worth fifty dollars more than the FM-100-B.

Overview

Fisher built the FM-200-B as a wide-band FM stereo multiplex tuner. The service manual is blunt about what that meant: a front end sensitive enough to pull distant stations, a multiplex section that switches itself, and enough filtering to keep the stereo subcarrier from turning noisy on weak signals. The factory documentation lists sensitivity at 0.5 microvolt for 20 dB of quieting through a 72-ohm antenna, or 1 microvolt through 300 ohms. Those numbers put it in the serious-antenna category, not the table-radio category. Usable sensitivity to the IHFM standard is rated at 1.6 microvolts.

Collectors like the FM-200-B for more than raw sensitivity, since plenty of 1960s tuners were sensitive. The big feature is the automatic stereo switching. When the station goes back to mono, the tuner follows. A Selector switch lets you force mono if a marginal stereo signal is flickering the automatic circuit, but under normal conditions you leave it in Automatic and forget it. High Fidelity (March 1962, p.9) framed the model as Fisher improving on Fisher - a more advanced instrument than the FM-100-B, and worth the price gap.

The rest of the front panel is a checklist of things Fisher's engineers cared about. A Muting control kills inter-station noise on both mono and stereo programs. A Sensitivity switch has three positions - AC Off, Distant, and Local - and the Local setting is there to prevent overloading when a strong local station bleeds across the dial. A tuning meter gives visual feedback for centering. A dual-ganged precision potentiometer sets the level of both channels together. The Micro-Tune circuit, engaged by the AFC switch, defeats the automatic frequency control while you turn the dial, then re-engages it once you stop. That solves the classic AFC annoyance of fighting the tuning knob.

The spec sheet behind the panel is more than respectable for the period. Alternate-channel selectivity is rated at 65 dB, capture ratio at 1.5 dB, and calibration accuracy at 0.2 percent. Audio frequency response runs 20 to 15,000 cycles per second within plus or minus 1 dB. Stereo separation at 1 kHz is 35 dB. Total harmonic distortion at rated output is under 0.15 percent, FM harmonic distortion at 400 cycles and 100 percent modulation is under 0.3 percent, and audio hum sits more than 76 dB below rated output. Rated output is 2 volts into a 100-ohm output impedance. Power consumption is 58 watts at 105-120 volts, 50/60 cycles. None of that is spectacular by later solid-state standards, but it is honest tube-tuner engineering.

The manual is candid about one thing: the stereo subcarrier is inherently noisier than the main carrier, and Fisher says so plainly. For weak or distant stereo reception it recommends a higher-gain antenna or a better antenna location, not a magic circuit. The tuner includes a filter to suppress subcarrier noise under poor conditions without rolling off the stereo frequency response. The manual doesn't pretend the physics can be beaten.

The FM-200-B runs on AC only. It mounts horizontally or vertically but never on its side, and the manual is emphatic that it should never sit on top of an amplifier or in a fully enclosed cabinet. The perforated bottom cover needs airflow underneath. Fisher supplied plastic feet for shelf mounting, and for custom installations the manual describes two methods: cleats that raise the chassis above the shelf for bottom ventilation, or a flush mount with a cutout in the shelf itself. Two factory cabinets were offered, the MC-2 metal cabinet and the 10-U wood cabinet in walnut or mahogany. Antenna connections are 300-ohm screw terminals for the supplied folded dipole or a 72-ohm coaxial jack, selected by a rear-panel switch.

The FM-200-B is not a receiver. There's no amplification, no speaker outputs, no power stage of any kind. It's a line-level source component, and it expects a preamplifier and power amplifier downstream. Fisher's own advertising in the mid-1960s placed it in a lineup of six tuners, sitting between the FM-100-B at $249.50 and the MF-300 at $359.50, with the FM-200-B itself listed at $299.50. Audio (April 1964, p.9) ran a Fisher advertisement under the headline that there is no such thing as the one best tuner, and that Fisher made at least six. The FM-200-B was among them, positioned on sensitivity and capture ratio as much as anything else.

Market Value

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ FISHER FM-200-B                                                 Nov 2026 │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ High      $239                                    Latest            $239 │
│ Median    $198                                    Trend                — │
│ Low       $156                                    Volume           ~1/mo │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│   $300 ┤                                                                 │
│        │                                                                 │
│        │                                                                 │
│   $214 ┤                                                                .│
│        │.                                                                │
│        │                                                                 │
│        │                                                          .      │
│   $100 ┤                                                                 │
│        ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│
│    vol │█                                                         █     █│
│        └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│
│         2026-03                      2026-05                      2026-06│
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

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