Sony TC-K80
Sony TC-K80II
(1979 - 1981)

One of the rarely seen "prosumer" cassette recorders.
Super solid recorder sporting the second best meters ever : Sony's deep LCD ! (The best meters ever are Sony's earlier PPM, as seen in the TC-880-2 for instance). The 'power on' button is borrowed from the TA-F80 integrated amps - units which also vanished rather quickly. Made to be used with the x-rare RM-50 wired remote control, to take advantage of a then new feature : AMS, aka Automatic Music Sensor or Automatic Music Search.

The original TC-K80 (>above) was quickly superseded by the TC-K80II (>right) which added the two tiny buttons above the MIC inputs to select METAL (Type IV) bias and EQ.