Pioneer F-700
A model number that turns up in two very different worlds, and only one of them has the paperwork to prove it.
Overview
There is a real problem with the Pioneer F-700, and it isn't a spec dispute or a murky production date. The name appears to belong to more than one thing, and the archive's own research came back empty. The fact sheet for this entry has no identity, no specifications, no history, no price, no years. Nothing. What follows says so plainly.
What the archive does have is a set of period documents that carry the "F700" designation. They describe a compressor/limiter from Audio & Design (Recording) Ltd., a British firm based in Shinfield, Reading. The F700 Series Compressor-Limiter, as catalogued in Studio Sound in early 1972, offered switchable compression ratios from 2:1 up to 8:1 plus a limit position. Quoted distortion was 0.1% THD at 1 kHz for 15 dB of gain reduction. Attack times were switchable from 0.1 ms through a range of positions up to 25 ms. Release times ran from 25 ms to 3600 ms with a "multiple" setting on top. Signal-to-noise was quoted as better than -75 dB below limit threshold.
That is a real, documented piece of studio equipment. On the evidence, it is not a Pioneer product. The F700 documents name Audio & Design explicitly, give a Reading telephone number, and describe a 5" × 19" × 9" rack-mounting format with XLR and Gauge "B" jack connections. Nothing in those pages mentions Pioneer.
The magazine chunks retrieved for this entry are a mess of misattribution. One from HI-Fi-Stereo-Buyers (March 1979, p.75) discusses a Lafayette LR-120Db tuner. Others, from Audio (October 1976, p.117) and Audio (October 1978, p.128), are equipment listings that name-check headphones from other makers. None of these is a Pioneer F-700.
So the designation may refer to a British studio compressor, to a Pioneer component whose documentation has not surfaced, or to a catalogue error somewhere upstream. The archive cannot confirm that a Pioneer F-700 exists as a distinct product. Anyone with one in hand, or a service manual, an owner's card or a dealer sheet, can put it on record.
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