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Sony
TA-FA777ES In fact, this where it really ends, for Sony as well as all the others : the launch of the best and least compressed audio format ever accessible to a soon-to-be wide audience. SACD is like 10-bit / 4:4:4 video : pure signal, no loss. Unfortunately, it is big, bulky, expensive, and requires new loudspeakers, new sources and... new discs. Nearly ten years after, we all know where things are at : computers have engulfed everything and the best way to sell albums seems to either include a video track and "bonuses" aplenty or to go the download way through myspace and youtube. Attempts at quality downloading (even 24/96 high-res) are actually ongoing but whether this will make a market (even if niched-like) remains to be seen. So the FA777ES was Sony's last stand for 2-channel audio, for the home and the old fashioned way. Takashi Kanai was at the helm as he had been since the late 1970s. Non-magnetic and gold-plated MOS-FETs, Torus Toroidal Core transformer, copper-plated chassis (something Sony did first in the PCM-F1, along Sansui and way before Marantz started being praised for such audiophile seriousness), ultra-select parts, solid aluminium controls, heatsinks and switches - the FA777ES inherited from both the contemporary TA-N1 & TA-E1 and the 5000 series tricks while remaining price-wise accessible. It was Sony's last high-end but non-exorbitant ES pre/main amplifier - a 1999 version of the 1965 ES TA-1120. After the immensely successful launch of the original ES separates in 1965, in between the industry high time of 1977 and the peak-to-be of 1999, the ES series saw its all-time best (ST-A7B, TA-N7B), side shows to those (TC-880-2, TTS-8000, PS-X9), its all-time best and market-wise truly successful (TA-E86B, TA-E88B, TA-N86B), a sadly badly marketed and technologically incoherent follow up series (ESPRIT, APM-8, TA-N900, TA-E900, TA-N902, SE-P900), the digital revolution (CDP-5000, CDP-101, PCM-F1), a slump in coherence but excellent amplifiers (TA-F555ES, TA-F777ES, TC-K777ESII) and what is undoubtedly Sony's last successful period -image-wise, sales-wise AND sound-wise- which began with the TA-F800ES and culminated in 1993 with the TA-F808ES, by way of magnificent pieces such as the CDP-R1 & DAS-R1, CDP-X777ES, CDP-X707ES, DTC-1500ES, DTC-2000ES, SS-A5, SS-GR1, TA-ER1 and MDR-R10 "King". And I won't even mention Beta/Digibeta video or BVM Trinitron monitors which are all undisputed industry standards : since the mid 1980s for professional Beta (before that it was U-Matic, a Sony/JVC standard) and since about always for Trintron... In
1990, Sony was recognized in
a worldwide poll as the most "positive" brand :
making the more inventive and desirable products on top of having
the most instantly recognizable logo - impressive. At any rate, you can thank Ibuka, Iwama, Ezaki, Nakajima, Kanai and the others for turning a tiny little part of the electronics industry into gems of audio engineering : musically satisfying, long-lasting and beautiful components. |
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The
TA-FA777ES is the ultimate evolution of the last coherent ES series
which started in 1994/95 with the TA-FA7ES
then with the TA-FA70ES in 1997. It should be noted that, besides circuit and hardware upgrades, Sony added a little souvenir from gone-by days with the TA-FA70ES : the tape monitoring switch which is the basic same design as that of the TC-880-2, PCM-F1, TC-K777, TC-K777ES, TC-K777ESII, TC-KA7ES, DTC-1500ES, DTC-2000ES and a few others. Whenever you see that little circled metal switch, you can be sure that you are facing a Sony component that was particularily well studied, engineered and built. Its absence doesn't mean you're faced with a lemon (case in point : TA-F7B and just about everything else in Sony's top lineups up to 1994), but the high-fidelity separates named above have all extremely well stood the test of time. Like all of Sony's high-end audio output, since 1965. |