Sony PCM-1
(september 1977 - 1980)

The first consumer PCM processor, ancestor of the D.A.T. and the 1st commercially available A/D & D/A converter, except it didn't have a digital output other than the video signal sent to the VCR. However, at 15,000DM in 1979 (with a SLO-320 Beta recorder included) this wasn't exactly "consumer" style !

The analogue-to-digital chip was sourced from Burr Brown and the digital-to-analogue chips from Texas Instruments - Sony would only launch its own CDA and CDX production program in 1980, when the CD standard would be well under way. By which time Sony already had functional prototypes of integrated recorders, either Beta-based or cassette-based.
Anyway - back to 1976 : although Sony already disagreed about this low resolution, the PCM-1 was a 14-bit deck and thus conformed to the then recent EIAJ standard - compromises often lead to established standards. Sony would however impose 16-bit depth when the CD standard was discussed, straying Philips and many others from their renewed 14-bit recommendations - patience is a virtue. Coding is in fact done at 13-bit (per channel), with 16-bit chips for error correction ; being an NTSC unit, sampling was fixed at 44,056kHz. The bandwidth necessitated for the total 1,400,000 bits per second was 1,7MHz.

Build-quality is unbelievable and as massive as an ST-A7B for instance: multiples layers of aluminium and steel make the sculptured front while, inside, only large plug-in type cards are used for a 19kg total of 1977 cutting edge technology.

The november 1978 US sell-sheet advertises the PCM-1 as compatible with either the Betamax or U-Matic fomats: Betamax was Sony's own, the U-Matic had been co-developped by Sony, Matsushita and thus... JVC. Since Sony had no stake in VHS, it was normal that that format wasn't "recommended" but it would become so several years later.
Spearheaded by Sony, D.A.T. finally replaced all VTR/PCM combos, whether Sony's own (PCM-10, PCM-F1, PCM-1600, PCM-501ES / 601 / 701ES) Sansui's, Nakamichi's (really a rebadged PCM-F1), Technics' or Toshiba's. But none of these managed to sell as well as Sony's own units because Sony -and nobody else- made digital recording a viable industry standard.

You can see prototypes of the PCM-1 in the Invisibilia section and read a very interesting 2-year late 1979 text from Stereophile, with a PCM-1 in it.
The images with the green background come from a 1979 Stereoplay issue ; the grey one comes from the original 1978 USA sell-sheet. I have more in stock but these should do :) It is, however, always interesting to see how Sony never paid enough care about how its components were photographed: the Stereoplay image is far more appealing -to say the least- and shows the structured design much better than anything emanating from Sony...