Teac C-1

MASTER-recorder and prototype of all of Teac's later big guns :
from the successful 122 broadcast deck, its mkII and mkIII versions, the DA-30 DAT, its mkII, DA-40, R-10 and R-9 versions, to the mid 90s professional digital multitracks : same layout, same indestructible mechanisms with only the format changing.

The C-1 is a 3-head / 3-motor dual-capstan with DC circuit, plug-in PCBs (inside) and plug-in bias/eq card (outside) for perfect and repeatable tape calibration : either Reference (bias/eq), CrO2, Cobalt (Co) or... blank.

The input pots are ganged together : uselful most of the time and always funny to see the pot one doesn't touch moving all by itself alongwith the pot one is touching :)
They can be "un-ganged" of course.

The C-1 was mainly meant as a master recorder in Japan where it was available with the MX-8 mixer and RX-8 dbx processor all stacked into a dedicated enclosure / flight-case. That version was white - and very impressive.
The export version was brown-ish black and the "8" tools optional.

An optional 12-pin wired RC-90 remote control could be hooked ; it was the same as that of the the extra-rare AL-700 ELCASET recorder.
The back holds the two MIC inputs, regular i/os, two stereo pairs to encoder, two to decoder, the RC-90 terminal, plus a (-nother custom) terminal for "control signal".


The C-1 was updated in 1980 as C-1mkII : slightly better frequency response (22Khz instead of 20Khz), a MIC load impedance lowered from 600 Ohm to 200 Ohm and the presence of Type IV (METAL) compatibility (and the vanishing of FeCr).
Otherwise identical.

I have no idea who made the mechanism -either Teac or Alpine- but none of the catalogs I have seen, included the original japanese one dedicated to the C-1, does show anything related to the drive... but for this all-out effort, it might be Teac itself.


Whether Japan-only or not, there were many many versions of the C-1 besides its two C-2 and C-3 direct siblings and most of them are still around, playing and recording, playing and recording, playing and recording, playing and recording, playing and recording, playing and recording, playing and recording, playing and recording, playing and recording, playing and recording and playing and recording with
no problems whatsoever,
ever.