Sony PS-Q7
Sony FH-7
Sony HELI
(1982 - 1984)

Here is a real worldwide best-seller.

When everybody was trying to make the perfect portable hifi combo, Sony came up with the HELI and at last took the market it strived to take over since the mid 1970s.
The FH-7 sold like hotcakes : it was small, truly portable, not all that bad sounding and was topped by a cute as can be PS-Q7 quarter-sized turntable. Two power-blocks could be used : EBP-78 for outdoor use and AC-78 for indoor.

The 35,000¥ PS-Q7 became one of Sony's better remembered component and sold very very well on its own, along its PS-Q3, PS-Q3A, PS-Q7A and PS-Q9 variants, most available in red, silver or very dark brown-ish grey. The japanese packaging for the PS-Q series was sadly not exported but really deserved a Good Design award.

The japanese versions of the Q7 had an FM antenna at the back to do away with amplifiers and transmit the LP playback directly to an FM tuner or portable boombox ; said antenna had a red LED glowing at the top when transmitting :) The optional SBMC base for the Q7 which you can see here wasn't exported either.
If specs for the ST-78 tuner, TA-78 amplifier, TC-78 recorder and PS-Q7 turntable weren't exceptional, they were nevertheless quite respectable for a portable hifi set.

Sony produced an astronomical amount of later FH systems but none managed to be as cute a bestseller as the orginal HELI FH-7. As several other Sony products, the FH-7 arrived at the right moment, with the right features and the right design - come to think of it, this doesn't happen very often, Sony or not.