Sony TA-E7B
Sony TA-E7
(april 1977 - 1981)

Here embodied are the 70s in all their solid glory - the TA-E7 was packed with more functions and inputs than one could think of. Not that they were all necessary but, in true 70s style, the more knobs the better ! Needless to say, it still looks better than the 80s' the more LEDs the better.
Anyway - a business inversally proportional to the TA-N7's sobriety !

Of course, by today's standards, the TA-E7 sports way too much knobs and switches to deserve any kind of 'audiophile' label but, still, when all tone controls and filters are off, there's only one coupling capacitor in the signal path - and if that ain't audiophile bickering... Not to mention the gold-plated phono terminals or the very elaborate phono stage... and VU meters. An excllent preamplifier which goes a step further than 1974's TAE-8450, with a nice servicing touch : the TA-E7 opens up three-fold - back, center and front so that everything remains easily accessible.

As all "7" units (TA-N7, TA-F7, TA-E7, ST-A7, EL-7), japanese units were "B" coloured but didn't bear the letter itself on the faceplate... And the japanese version all look dark grey in the catalogs but are of a real european "B" green-ish shade in the flesh and in the (rare) ads - go figure. Available in Europe in silver color (TA-E7) - very rare version.

The E7 is to the right shown with its TA-N7B companion amp, ST-A7B digital tuner, TCK-7B tape deck (or 8B) and PS-X70 turntable, all stacked in Sony's own xxx-rare SU-V7 rack, specifically made to accomodate the "7" lineup which, by the way, completely obliterates the N7's main ventilation area !