Truly, one of the nicest cassette decks every made. Pioneer made a huge commitment to tape in the 70’s.
They certainly outclassed their competition by a long shot. Sansui had a couple of nice machines, and Kenwood’s KX-1030 quickly developed mechanical issues. Technics had a long history of making quality decks, but truly Pioneer took the lead. Even over such names as Akai, Teac and Tandberg. Arguably the most popular hifi brand in the 1970’s, Pioneer just built good gear and great sounding tape decks.
Pioneer boldly pitted the 9191 against the finest deck ever made the Nakamichi 1000. They went as far as to directly compare the specs of each machine in fold out add in High Fidelity and Stereo Review magazine. I will scour my vintage magazines and find the ad copy and post it here at a later date.
The 9191 had great specs siting an unweighted frequency response of 20-17,000hz using chrome tape. The weighted response using chrome tape was 30-15,000hz, still very respectable, but not up to Nakamichi 1000 standards by any means. Keep in mind too, the Nak was a three head machine!
I have owned two or three 9191 decks over the years and always found them a joy to use. Sansui and Pioneer had the open cassette well, with dispensed with the need to a cassette door. So simple and practical and provided great access to the tape heads and pinch rollers. Wollensak was the first to use the open cassette well, as seen the their decks as well as Advent, Neal, and HeathKit who all used the Wollensak transport.
The Pioneer was also a very well made machine. Easy to service and came with a lovely walnut cabinet. Just a class act. The lesser known CTF-9090 was the same machine without the walnut cabinet.
Expensive when new in 1975 at $450.00 retail, expect to pay $400-1500 for a pristine example today. Given the age of the deck, the transistors and caps should be checked and replaced as needed. Also, be sure to use premium replacement belts when servicing.
I really loved the 9191, and it is probably my favorite Pioneer cassette deck. Capable of making outstanding recordings. I really wish I had kept one of them over the years. It would be nice to put into the system rotation.
This incredibly nasty system photo I am showing from 2003, is of my Pioneer system. I used either an SX-1150, or 1250 at this time, with a Pioneer RT-909 which my son now owns, an Ariston RD-11s turntable with a GRACE 747 tonearm. The CD player is a Rotel AX-955 and the noise reduction unit for the Pioneer 909 was a DBX SRN-1.
I highly recommend the Pioneer CT-F 9191. Great machine!
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