Sony ESPRIT #6
september 2004

ST-J88
ST-J88B
(late 1978 - 1984)

The last full-fledged pre-Esprit to appear, late in 1978 in Europe and Japan, a year later in the US. The J88 was produced at the time Sony and Wega in Germany were pondering about the presence or absence of an ESPRIT tuner. The latter was finally made but only by Wega and not carried into the Sony ESPRIT lineup.
Digital displays were cool and "efficient" but one still had to slide in from above the set of little pre-cut cards to put a name on the digits :-) The J88 probably is the most elegant unit of the series.
Sound-wsie, contrarily to all other 86 and 88 units which called for unanimous praise, it seems some say the ST-J88 is a super tuner and some say it isn't as good as it could have been...

The silver (STJ88, above) was for Japan only ; the rest of us got the gun metal grey: ST-J88B (left).

Read the Tuner Information Center review of the ST-J88B.
FEATURES:
Quartz X-tal Lock frequency synthesis tuning
Three-way tuning mode + 0,2MHz steps manual tuning
Seven memory presets
Varactor diode/dual gate MOS-FET front end providing as steep a slope as a 6-gang varicap
Uni-Phase IF filters
Switchable IF bandwidth
Narrow IF position includes a complete IF circuit with its own separate discriminator
Auto selection of optimum IF bandwidth + manual override
PLL MPX decoder
Active 19kHz pilot canceller
Memory presets keep bandwidth/mode/muting settings
Sony's non-volatile MNOS circuitry for 10-year preset memory
FL digital frequency display
Front-panel insert cards
Feather-touch controls
Isolated PS with toroidal core PT and IC constant-voltage source
Fixed and variable level outputs...
The image at the top of this page comes from one of the rarest 1979 Sony japanese catalogs dedicated to amplififers and tuners ; the others from a German august 1983 general catalog, a june 1980 US advance sell-sheet ; the latter is part of the Stephen Lesser donation.