A rack sampler with the sampling taken out.
Overview
Two megabytes of RAM, a 3.5" floppy drive, a backlit 320-character LCD, and no way to record a sound into it. That's the Akai S1000PB, the playback-only member of the S1000 family, introduced in 1988 and built in Japan. Akai stripped the sampling inputs and recording circuitry out of a full S1000 and shipped what was left as a dedicated sample player. Internally it's identical to its sibling apart from the missing capture hardware, and in the UK at least it was priced as a meaningful step down from the full sampler.
The pitch was simple. If you already owned an S1000, or worked from commercial sample libraries, you didn't need a second machine that could record. You needed more voices. The S1000PB gives you 16-voice polyphony, and it was designed for rigs that needed more than 16-note polyphony, paired with a recording-capable S1000, or as a standalone playback unit for live work. Samples made on the S1000 transfer to the PB over diskette or MIDI Sample Dump, so a studio could keep one machine for capture and editing and use the PB purely as a sound source.
The audio path is 16-bit linear PCM, with switchable 44.1 kHz and 22.05 kHz sampling rates. The 22.05 kHz rate gives full compatibility with sample data built on the original S1000 series. A playback-only machine is only as useful as the library it can read, and the S1000PB reads the whole S1000 ecosystem. It also handles S900 disks, which is quiet but real backward compatibility, since Akai marketed the PB as a successor to the S900. The 44.1 kHz setting gives the full-bandwidth playback the S1000 series was known for. Drop to 22.05 kHz and you trade bandwidth for sample time, the same arithmetic every sampler of the era forced on its users.
Memory starts at 2MB onboard and expands in 2MB steps to a maximum of 8MB. That range is what defines the machine. 2MB is enough for a handful of drum hits and a bass patch, and 8MB can hold a full multi-sample instrument set. Owners report running 4MB configurations with SCSI storage and floppy emulators, which is the practical sweet spot for a machine that can't record its own material.
Key Features
16-bit Linear PCM Playback Core, No Input Terminals
The defining feature is an absence. There are no sampling inputs on the S1000PB - the recording section simply isn't there. What remains is the playback engine: 16-bit linear PCM with a stereo/mono independent playback core, fed entirely by disk and MIDI. One account describes it as an audio-output-only HiFi slave edition of the original S1000 lineup. If you're looking at a used unit and wondering why the back panel looks sparse, that's not a missing part.
Eight Individual Outputs Plus Stereo Mix
The output section is where the PB earns its place in a rack: stereo mix outputs, eight individual audio outputs, and a stereo headphone output. Eight discrete outs on a playback-only sampler point to studio and stage work rather than hobbyist use. You can route kick, snare, hats, and bass to separate console channels and process each independently, or send stems to a live desk without submixing inside the sampler.
16-voice Polyphony
Sixteen voices is the number that justifies owning a PB alongside an S1000. Akai's own documentation frames the PB as the answer for setups requiring more than 16-note polyphony, achieved by running it in tandem with a recording-capable S1000. Two machines, 32 voices, one shared library. That was the intended workflow, and it's a cheaper route to polyphony than buying a second full sampler.
Keygroup and Program Architecture
Samples are organized into keygroups, up to four per keygroup, then into programs, up to 100 of them. Keygroups carry the filter, amplitude envelopes, and velocity crossfades. Each voice gets two digital ADSR envelope generators - one for filter and pitch, one for amplitude - plus a single LFO for pitch modulation. Sample tuning is adjustable in semitones and cents, and playback is fixed-rate with interpolation handling pitch transposition. Crossfade looping is supported, as is splicing and crossfading between samples. That's more editing capability than the "playback-only" label suggests.
3.5" Floppy Drive and S1000/S900 Disk Compatibility
The drive is a 3.5" unit supporting both 2DD and 2HD disks, and it reads and writes S1000 and S900 disks using Akai's proprietary format. That means a PB owner has access to the entire S1000 and S900 library without owning either machine. It also means the floppy drive is the component most likely to fail, and the one most commonly replaced. Gotek and HxC floppy emulators show up regularly in used listings.
SCSI and AES/EBU Expansion Slots
Two expansion slots take optional interface cards: one for a SCSI hard-disk interface (also accommodating Atari/Supra drives), one for an AES/EBU stereo digital audio interface. The SCSI card is the one to have today. It allows high-speed data transfer from real drives rather than floppies, and it turns the PB from a disk-swapping machine into something you can actually work with. The AES/EBU card lets the sampler feed digital devices directly.
3U Rack Format and Backlit LCD
The S1000PB occupies 3U of 19" rack space and weighs 9.5 kilograms. The front panel carries a 320-character (8x40) backlit LCD, and navigation is by arrow keys rather than the rotary encoders found on some contemporaries. The control surface is simple, and so is the machine, since there's no recording workflow to manage. The headphone socket sits on the front panel rather than the back. The display part is shared with the S1000, S1100, and MX76, which makes replacement panels obtainable. Backlight failure is a known issue on aging units, and it usually shows up in listings as a cosmetic defect rather than a functional one.
Historical Context
The S1000PB arrived in 1988 as the third member of the S1000 series, alongside the basic S1000 and the S1000HD with its integral 40MB hard disk. Akai positioned the PB as a playback-only alternative to the full sampler and marketed it as a successor to the S900, aimed at users who worked from pre-recorded libraries rather than sampling their own material. The machine offered professional-grade playback with flexible output routing and multitimbral capabilities, and its S900 and S1000 disk compatibility kept it plugged into Akai's existing library ecosystem.
Akai's own advertising from the period leaned on the S1000 family's studio credentials. The Mix-Magazine (December 1989, p.112) campaign for the S1000PB tied the sampler to Don Henley's The End of the Innocence, noting that both the MPC60 and the S1000 were used in reproducing the album's sound on stage, and that most options for the S1000 also applied to the PB. That's a marketing association rather than an independent verdict. The wider S-series was superseded by the S3000 series in 1993, though the fact sheet doesn't record a specific end-of-production date for the S1000PB itself.
Collectibility & Value
The S1000PB typically sells on the used market for a few hundred dollars. That's a fraction of what the full S1000 commanded, since most buyers today want a sampler that samples. For anyone who already owns an S1000 or works from a library, the PB is an inexpensive route to a second 16-voice engine with its own set of eight outputs.
Original UK pricing in October 1988 was £2899 for the S1000, with a full 8MB system and cards reaching £5194. Those figures are documented for the S1000 rather than the PB, so treat them as context rather than a PB price. Common faults are predictable for a machine this age: failing original power supplies, worn buttons, and aging floppy drives. Well-maintained units often turn up with upgraded PSUs, solid-state storage, and LED backlights, and Gotek floppy replacements are a standard fix. Used listings frequently show configurations like OS 2.2 with 4MB, SCSI, and an HxC floppy emulator, which is close to the ideal spec for daily use. A non-working backlight is common enough to be a haggling point rather than a dealbreaker.
One argument follows the PB around: whether it should be called a "sampler" at all. The front panel says "digital sampler," which one owner noted with some amusement, while also insisting the machine was never a sampler in the recording sense. It plays samples, it doesn't make them.
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