Pioneer CT-F1250

Drool as long as ye may !
But beware of eBay - for these still chirp a fair share of pay !


Part of the components launched in the wake of the RT-707 success outside Japan and remaining available for quite a long time... outside Japan.
Also part of the most remembered components from the peak of the Hi-Fi era : the SX-1250 of recorders if you wish.

Still a big chunk of silver metal launched just before Metal tapes got standardized at last and cassette recorders started to shrink in size and expand in sound quality - albeit perhaps not reliability.


The CT-F1250 is an export-only upped version of the CT-920 (aka CT-F950 outside Japan) with some parts taken from the CT-1000 topper (december 1977), the latter being a CT-F1000 outside Japan.
The mechanism, united r/p/e head stack / heatsink and ferrite erase head are different but the rec/play Uni-X'Tal heads themselves are the same.

As far as big chunks of metal went, Pioneer preferred to keep the CT-1000 and CT-920 available longer in Japan (until 1981 !) and put its newest technology into something that did not look like a big silver piece.
Enter the CT-A1 monster (may 1979) while we still were handed an supper-upped 920 / F950, the 1250, as top of the pops...

So the 1978 CT-F1250 holds what the CT-A1 pushed to the 1979 limit : tape calibration, digital counter, blue Fluorscan meters, some automation, a heck of a lot of switches and knobs to deal with and even a pretty "Quartz Lock" green LED - not a novelty in 1978 but still a useful (marketing) tool !


The CT-F1250 sold very well, the CT-A1 didn't : 1978 was the peak, 1979 wasn't anymore.