The PRO-1000 was a semi-professional deck from Akai, seemingly only made for the US and Japanese markets between 1977 and 1982. None of Akai's European catalogues from the late 1970's make any reference to it and I can find no mention of it in any British or Australian literature.

It had separate transport and electronics units which were joined by three cables, enabling them to be placed side by side or with the transport atop of the electronics unit. It had three speeds, half track recording/quarter track playback functionality, four-in, two-out mixer with panning and many other features, even a pink noise
generator plus connections for optional external noise-reduction units.

To my knowledge, this was Akai's only serious venture into the semi-professional market.

Many thanks to Oktay Aral of Turkey who sent me much of the information for this page.

Additional images and a test report for this recorder are featured on the CD-ROM.