THIS is a cassette deck...!

  • Thread starter Thread starter sweetbeats
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sweetbeats

sweetbeats

Reel deep thoughts...
Pioneer CT-F1000, circa 1978 I believe.

WOW!

This is sitting in one of my Dad's attic spaces. He has hopes of setting it up with his Pioneer RT-909 (I'm currently refurbishing for him), and period Pioneer Receiver and turntable he has.

But it is WAY cool...super chunky nice controls, HUGE VU meters for a cassette deck, true 3-head isolated loop tape path (yes...two pinch rollers and two capstans), front panel bias, eq and dolby cal controls... :eek:

I'm going to clean it up for him sweetbeats-style at some point, maybe recap some of it and replace the rubber (though I haven't found a source for pinch rollers yet), but it is just a fine example of a cassette deck. But he took me into that attic space and that thing jumped off the shelf at me.

If anybody has anecdotal info on these models I'd love to hear it. I already located a full set of pdf documents for it so I'm good there.

image.webp
 
Sweet!

They don't make gear like that anymore!
:spank::eek:;)
 
I don't know about that particular deck, but with three heads and bias control you can monitor off the play head and set the bias by listening to the HF response. Engage Dolby to make it more obvious.

My last cassette recording deck was a Yamaha Natural Sound with pretty much those features, dual capstan, bias control, three heads. It also had HX Pro, which gave you another 3dB of headroom. But anymore I only use cassette decks for digitizing tapes.
 
Not sure about that model but the decks which immediately came after that series had rewind issues due to failing rubber edged idler cams. (Similar issue to the 244 Portastudio.)

Sweet deck though to be sure! A dragon slayer before the Dragon ever came ashore!

Cheers! :)
 
I had a Pioneer cassette deck and stereo power amp from this vintage. Really great stuff and well worth restoration. I don't remember the exact model number of the cassette, but it looked very similar to this. I wish I still had it.
 
Great-looking deck. I have a Kenwood KX-1030 that doesn't look too dissimilar: silver-polished finish, large analog VUs, etc. I've been meaning to get it up and running again. For belts, check out this place:
Pioneer CT-F1000 Belt Kit
They're actually really close to me, but strangely enough I've never used them, though I think you've just inspired me...
 
Oh you know what, sorry, I didn't read too closely, guess you're not looking for belts....
 
Do you recall if it had LCD meters or analog VUs?
 
Nice machine,
I thought it was a "what is this cassette deck" post and I would have gone Trio/Kenwood but Pioneer is up there with the best (if not quite Nakamichi!)

I have a Sony TC-K611S from about the same era and that performs superbly.

Now, I have no idea of your level of skill or equipment holding but I urge you to hold off a on re-cap! I would let the machine "trundle" for a few hours then check the supply voltages against the manual. If you have a scope, eyeball them for crap. I will put money on their being well within specc' and ripple free. Naturally, any caps that have white crap around them need replacing or those that have bulged.

Next you will need an oscillator and an audio millivoltmeter. The former tones you can generate from a computer but there is really no substitute for the latter. If the response is to specc' down to say 30Hz there is no need to re-cap.

The great thing about 3 head machines is that you can take the replay response as "read" and set the bias and record parameters to suit. This does not of course mean that the replay response IS right but unless you are playing third party tapes it won't matter a great deal.

Dave.
 
Still us my Yamaha KX580. Wish I could find something to replace it with in my system.
 
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