Pioneer Dates of Manufacture

To determine the date of manufacture of your Pioneer component, look at the serial number. The first two characters will give you the year and month of manufacture. The first letter is the year, the second letter is the month. For example, taking into consideration the age of the equipment:

ZA would be 1979, January
YL would be 1978, December
KK would be 1964, November

Code:
[b]
1st			2nd
Char	Year	Year	Char	Month[/b]

A	1954	1980	A	January
B	1955	1981	B	February
C	1956	1982	C	March
D	1957	1983	D	April
E	1958	1984	E	May
F	1959	1985	F	June
G	1960	1986	G	July
H	1961	1987	H	August
I	1962	1988	I	September
J	1963	1989	J	October
K	1964	1990	K	November
L	1965	1991	L	December
M	1966	1992
N	1967	1993
O	1968	1994
P	1969	1995
Q	1970	1996
R	1971	1997
S	1972	1998
T	1973	1999
U	1974	2000
V	1975	2001
W	1976	2002
X	1977	2003
Y	1978	2004
Z	1979	2005

Not all Pioneer components followed this rule. For example, the Pioneer SE-700 headphones had a two letter prefix, but did not follow the table above. For these components, it is rumored they were made by another company, possibly Azden or Stax, for Pioneer.

But, generally speaking, most all of Pioneer's components from 1954 followed this table.

Doc

I have two components that do not follow this chart.

DV-79AVi s/n = EIMP000215CC (was manufactured in Sept, 2005)
VSX-59TXi s/n = DBNN001030CC (was manufactured in Feb 2004, I think)

I will post the rest of my Pioneer s/n's as soon as I finish collecting them.
 
Yes, Pioneer has started moving away from the chart. The good news is that they are putting the year and month on the sticker.

It does look like Pioneer went to:

2001 A
2002 B
2003 C
2004 D
2005 E

The month is still correct.

However, 2004 and 2005 are hardly vintage components, eh?<g>

I will update the chart...

Doc
 
Here are the rest of my Pioneer S/N's:

GR-777 s/n = OK3910742C
CS-705 s/n = FC01746V
CS-705 s/n = FC01743V
SX-626 s/n = TD3733946

I believe all of these do follow the chart for manufacturing dates.

Note that the components in my previous email that do not follow the chart are Pioneer Elite components. Do the Elite products follow a different numbering scheme perhaps?
 
Yes, Pioneer has started moving away from the chart. The good news is that they are putting the year and month on the sticker.

However, 2004 and 2005 are hardly vintage components, eh?<g>

I will update the chart...

Doc


Not too old yet (only 4 or 5 years), but they have now been replaced with new Pioneer flagships and are no longer readily available via authorized dealers.

My other post had all of my "vintage" stuff listed, and please note ALL are still in service and problem-free.
 
I am thankfull for your single minded devotion to maintain records,Even Pioneer does not maintain such records, You are doing a great job,I salute you with my heart
Bhandarkar
 
I've got a few:

PIONEER4.jpg
 
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Hello! I write from Argentina , where my experience with Pioneer started 7 years ago. In my country the electricity supply is 220 volts, but there are a considerable number of these modules that have joined Pioneer new in the 80s and 90s used (usually from Japan and the US ). In my collection I own about 75 different modules Pioneer models , and even repeated . From reading this forum, I generated a list of models and serial number of my models , where I have found that most devices that have 110v or 120v begin their numbering with 36 ......
Other special features found in my list , is that the Cassette Tape Decks multivoltage begin with the number 93 ......
Now, I will be looking for some other peculiarity in my modules .
Goodbye!
 
I have a PL-41 that does not have the 2 alpha characters at the beginning of the serial number. Anyone have an idea how to date this or what the dates of manufacture were on this turntable? I got it from the daughter of the original owner who said it was purchased "around 1970".

Thanks!
 
SX-3500 - S/N AG3604815Y - built July, 1980

SX-1500T F - S/N OK20276 - built November, 1968 - is this an early build? Not sure how to decipher the numerical digits in the S/N - would that be the 276th off the line, or the 20,276th? I doubt they built 20K+ units. ??

I am assuming "Dr. Strangelove" is no longer with us, except in spirit, since he hasn't been here since late 2009? :(

Very interesting thread - excellent work from the Dr. :thumbsup:
 
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