TA-E1
(1999 - 2001+)

Part of Sony's last series of High-End units, specifically designed alongside the SACD format, with outer-space bandwidth requirements.

The TA-E1, when available on the 2nd-hand market, still fetches high prices in Japan. Case in point - too bad Sony did advertise them so discreetely, as usual. I'm not sure about the kinda-Star-Wars looks, nor of the blue sideburns, but I really wouldn't mind owning one :)

How many were produced is a mystery but the series didn't sell that much - it is even said that only the initial production was completed... But then -as a prospective replacement to CD- neither does SACD.

As for the xxxxx-rare R10 units, no expense was spared for the "1" units. High-bandwidth oblige, the star of the show is the Phase Linear Amplifier (diagram below)... phase is specified to be linear up to 100kHz, showing only -5dB around the 100MHz region!

The chassis of the TA-E1 is a sandwich of 1cm aluminium and 2x 2mm copper plates ; the top plate is 7mm thick, enlarged to 1cm for the front part. Power supply and rectification are set in a separate enclosure, very much like the pre-Esprit and ESPRIT units :)

The attenuator has a 5cm diameter and allows channel balance error of only 0,5dB between 0dB and -100dB ; depth is of 9,5cm while the structure of it is full oxygen-free copper made under hot casting conditions. Ultra-low resistance plastic is used.

The power transformer is "amorphic" and toroidal with ultra-magnetic materials (nickel, cobalt and iron) used for the metal core and precise winding arrangement ; it is housed in a ceramic box for optimal damping and avoidance of any possible flux leaks.

The 4 die-cast aluminium plates hold the input/output stages PCBs and are used as heatsinks as well, decoupling the boards from the chassis along the way. The rest of the parts is on par with all the above, and so was the pricetag.

This post will later on be updated with the detailed technical description coming from all three dedicated "1" catalogs: japanese, german and worldwide english.