Pioneer CT-F1250
- Thread starter booted
- Start date
Register to hide this ad
gizzyman47
Addicted Member
Got one myself! Real looker!
nakmandan
Vintage Nak enthusiast
Yeah, these are gorgeous decks. Love the blue fluoroscan meters and was into the whole fluoroscan thing several years ago, actually had a CT-F850 and 900 as well. The 1250 is a bit of an oddity in that it is one of the few machines that has a pitch control AND quartz lock. Usually you can have one or the other, not both.
nakmandan
Vintage Nak enthusiast
There is one Achilles heel on these decks, and that is the heads. Specifically, the ferrite combination REC/PLAY head. Ferrite is a hard but brittle material and under the wrong conditions the head gap can fracture, whether played or not. To the naked eye these heads look fantastic, usually mirror like surface. However, look under a high power microscope at the gap edge and you will often find large chunks of metal missing, effectively making a very wide gapped, jagged, irregular edge, which absolutely decimates the high frequency potential of the head. Most of these heads that have passed through my bench are like this but fortunately there have been exceptions. I would say maybe one in five have still been good.
Some of the worst condition heads I have seen have the high frequencies start to drop off as low as 4kHz! At 10kHz it might be -10dB, at 15kHz -20dB and above that? Forget it! However, even heads like this can still be enjoyable to listen to, especially to us older folks whose hearing has dropped off somewhat. The real test of the head is done with a playback frequency response tape. A simple visual inspection is usually not revealing enough to know what the potential of the head is. Some of the heads can be lapped to possibly bring back some performance. I sent three of these heads to JRF Magnetics for such service. Two of them were junk as they had cracked cores but the third was successfully lapped and picked up +6dB at 10kHz. Unfortunately, it is not just the CT-F1250 that uses this head, it is also found in the CT-F1000 and some of the Japan only model CT-A1 flagship decks, known to the rest of the world as the Phase Linear 7000mkII. So be forewarned if contemplating one of these decks. Yes, they are highly sought after, ultra-cool pieces of machinery, but just understand that the head may be toast and there are no easy replacements available.
Some of the worst condition heads I have seen have the high frequencies start to drop off as low as 4kHz! At 10kHz it might be -10dB, at 15kHz -20dB and above that? Forget it! However, even heads like this can still be enjoyable to listen to, especially to us older folks whose hearing has dropped off somewhat. The real test of the head is done with a playback frequency response tape. A simple visual inspection is usually not revealing enough to know what the potential of the head is. Some of the heads can be lapped to possibly bring back some performance. I sent three of these heads to JRF Magnetics for such service. Two of them were junk as they had cracked cores but the third was successfully lapped and picked up +6dB at 10kHz. Unfortunately, it is not just the CT-F1250 that uses this head, it is also found in the CT-F1000 and some of the Japan only model CT-A1 flagship decks, known to the rest of the world as the Phase Linear 7000mkII. So be forewarned if contemplating one of these decks. Yes, they are highly sought after, ultra-cool pieces of machinery, but just understand that the head may be toast and there are no easy replacements available.
I can confirm the tape head error. I had it on this deck too. Took one from an old Grundig CF5500. Removed the carrier plate, took the old carrier plate from the Pioneer and glued the Grundig head to it. Measuring everything worked wonderfully. Mirror cassette used.
