Uher CR-160 (1984)
A front-loading portable stereo cassette deck built to do everything on location, and priced accordingly.
Overview
Uher had been out of the U.S. market for a stretch when the CR-160 AV landed. The company announced its return with a machine that reads less like a field recorder and more like a studio deck you can carry. The list price was $998 in 1985 dollars, well above the typical portable cassette unit of the day. Audio (January 1986, p.112) put it plainly - the price was high compared to typical units, but the CR-160 AV was not a typical machine, and might well prove a good investment.
For that money you got a front-loading stereo cassette recorder with Dolby B and C noise reduction, three built-in speakers for on-site monitoring, separate right and left level controls, and switchable automatic level control with a choice of two time constants. Twin peak-reading VU meters with a dB scale sit alongside a three-way tape selector covering FE, FeCr, and Cr tape. The transport uses a high-performance DC motor with electronic control and long-life Sendust tape heads. This deck assumes you'll set levels by hand in the field, not lean on a single ALC circuit to save you.
The powering options are what separate it from a home deck. The CR-160 AV runs on dry C cells, nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries, a 12-volt car battery, or 110/220/240-volt AC at 50 or 60 Hz. That means it works from the car, the wall socket, or the middle of nowhere without a separate inverter box. Audio (January 1986, p.105) described it as a compact, rugged unit that packs a number of important features - including provisions for synchronizing movie soundtracks - into a package that can be powered by dry batteries, a rechargeable battery, or AC line power from an adaptor usable outside.
The film-dubbing angle is not incidental. Uher built accessories for film dubbing, sync sound, and remote control, and the feature set is aimed at people doing production audio as much as music. The front-loading cassette compartment keeps the footprint tight and the transport protected when the unit moves between setups.
Three built-in speakers mean you can check a take without headphones. The speaker switch offers Off, On, and a -20 dB position for quieter monitoring. There's also a battery checker and a meter-light switch. Audio's reviewer (January 1986, p.106) noted the value of the battery-status indicator for remote work and liked being able to turn the meter lights on when needed and off when not. The same review put the deck through a shake-and-movement test, including rotations around its axes, and found no effect on flutter or tape speed.
The transport controls run through a solenoid, and the review (January 1986, p.105) was impressed by its quiet, apparently shock-free action. The clunk was noted as very soft. The "Pause" button interrupts record or play, with "Start" resuming. The owner's manual, according to the same review, presents considerable detail with excellent instructions on powering and connections, though the ALC guidelines were flagged as incomplete.
The CR-160 AV made its public debut at a trade show in 1984. Uher exhibited it for the first time alongside the full range of their portable products, with Dolby B and C on display and the ASC line of studio and industrial tape machines and cassette decks also on demonstration. By the following year it was in the U.S. market and in the pages of the audio press, and by 1986 Audio was running a full review. The magazine's index lists it as the "Uher CR 160 AV Portable Cassette Recorder," confirming the AV suffix as the model's full designation.
For collectors, the CR-160 AV sits in an odd spot. It's a Uher portable from the company's cassette era rather than its open-reel period. It has the build quality and powering flexibility that made Uher portables respected, and it also has the price tag and complexity that kept them out of most hands. The Dolby C provision, the three-way tape selector, the Sendust heads, and the sync-sound accessories all point to a machine built for professional-adjacent work rather than casual taping.
Anyone chasing one should expect to find it as the CR-160 AV, and should check that the accessories for film dubbing, sync sound, and remote control come with it, since those are part of what made the machine useful. The powering flexibility is a plus, but a unit with a tired rechargeable battery or a missing AC adaptor is less complete than it looks. A deck that has been knocked around will show it in the front-loading transport and solenoid controls before anywhere else.
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