Pioneer Series 3000

Very rare mid-sized system taking up where the Series 20 left off. Varied but coherent design, an obvious effort on finish and... good components, too !

The Series 3000 had the overall name of "Mini Component" in Japan, Mini 1, Mini 3 or Mini 5 corresponding to the various combination of units.

Many components were therefore produced for the japanese market but the export system invariably consisted of the following quartet :

SA-3000 : integrated amplifier,
CT-3000 : cassette deck,
TX-3000 : tuner,
PS-3000 : turntable,
B-3000 : dual-cube rack.

The recommended loudspeakers were, naturally, market-dependent : tiny CS-X2, big HPM-60, cool S-X50 or even sizeable S-100.

The Mini 1 was TX-3000 based, the other two took on the SA-3000 integrated amplifier.
Japan seemed to have prefered the tv-sound/amplifier TVX-205 as center and the T-3050 (or 3050M : both not made by Pioneer but by Hachiohzi DK) as recorder but there also were other variants and other versions here, there and elseanywhere, too.

A 1980 addition to the Series 3000 took shape in the SX-3000 receiver.

Yet, despite several dedicated catalogs in Japan, sales didn't equal those of the other competing "mini" of the times such as the Toshiba System 15 or the Aiwa 22.
Perhaps "mini" was too much of an ambiguous overstatement : all components have a fair 38cm width.