Fisher XP-4 (c. 1961–1963)

Little is documented about the Fisher XP-4 outside of Fisher's own early-1960s advertising. No independent test reports, service literature or detailed specifications have surfaced. The period record does show that the XP-4 and a closely named variant, the XP-4A, sat near the top of Fisher's speaker line. A High Fidelity advertisement from December 1963 (p.5) listed the XP-4A, explicitly grouped with Fisher's three-way speaker systems, at $199.50. That was just below the flagship XP-10 at $249.50.

Fisher's ads for the XP series talked about the design, not the numbers. The company claimed the XP-4 was "the first breakthrough in basic speaker design in years," with the conventional bass speaker frame eliminated as a source of parasitic vibration (High Fidelity, June 1961, p.21). The cutaway art in the ads called out a "free cone" woofer on a magnet support inside a 3/4-inch enclosure, with AcoustiGlas damping and AcoustiCloth. Advertising in High Fidelity (December 1961, p.23) and Audio (February 1962, p.11) predicted the design would be "the world's most imitated loudspeaker design" and said Fisher's patent attorneys had seen to it that it would never be exactly duplicated. A later ad for the XP-4A in High Fidelity (November 1962, p.17) claimed a new order of clarity in bass reproduction, specifically being able to tell whether it's the cellos playing low or the double basses playing high.

The surviving record doesn't document how the XP-4 and XP-4A relate. The XP-4 appears in ads from mid-1961. The XP-4A was advertised as "new" in late 1962, which hints at a revision, but nothing in the available sources says so explicitly. Crossover details, frequency response, impedance and measured performance remain undocumented.

Known from advertising:

• XP-4A advertised as a three-way system at $199.50 (December 1963)
• Frameless "free cone" woofer construction touted in period ads
• Full specifications and independent reviews not documented

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The Fisher XP-4A Speakers

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