Fisher X-100 Valve Amplifier in the House!

Today a Fisher X-100 valve amplifier landed in my driveway. USPS had a good day and the package did not get damaged:

The unit was packed fairly well using a lot of tightly wrapped bubble wrap and came with the original manual and a reproduction of the service manual. The sheet on the top right is a map for inserting the valves as was promised by the seller.

We agreed that the valves needed to be removed and carefully packaged individually:

Each tube was wrapped individually and numbered. Very nice job!

And finally the X-100 sat on my bench. The front panel is a bit worn, but on the positive side there are all the buttons and the green 'jewel light' is still there.

This is how it looked out of the box, 'de-valved':

I then unwrapped the valves. And the pleasing surprise was that they may well be the original set! Awesome! Made in USA and Western Germany. This is a ECC83 preamp valve:

This is a GE made EL84 power valve:

And the awesome looking GZ34 rectifier of the power supply. Amazing! A message from a semiconductor free world!

After unwrapping and marveling I plugged them in. All sockets seem to be in nice shape and all tubes  went in easily but with enough friction to give them a nice sturdy support:

Luckily, I read the manual first where it says: Connect speakers or load resistors first then turn it on. Otherwise the unit can get damaged. After connecting my bench test speakers I fired it up. And the jewel came to life! Very nice!

And then after a short while the power tubes and the rectifier started to emit that lovely glow: 

I connected my iPad to the tuner input and cranked up the volume. It sounded absolutely awesome. Johnny Guitar Watson: "Superman Lover" funked warmly out of my speakers with an amazing clearness and full sound. It seems this baby works as was advertised by the seller! Wonderful! A great starting point for bringing it on a sound footing!