Sony TC-K8B
Sony TC-K8
(october 1977 - 1980+)

Massive chunk of steel, inheriting the ELCASET decks' transport panel and the then-new (and very large, the largest Sony will ever make) LCD display.
The "closed-loop/dual-capstan" hadn't yet been transplanted from the big RtR to the cassette decks and the "rec-mute" button still was a side-function...

As the "B" moniker suggests (B for "black", more like greenish bronze in reality), there must have been a silver version : TC-K8. In fact it seems the silver version was only delivered in Canada while the rest of the world, Japan included, only saw the B version.
Like on a few other Sony units from the same era, the color was specified in the service manual but not on the unit itself ; therefore a japanese "bronze" TC-K8B will be named... TC-K8. Why make simple ?

It mostly is a pity Sony didn't make a full-fledged high-end recorder with three heads and an obvious mechanical upgrade from the TC-K7B... The same happened to the (bestselling nevertheless) TC-K88B.

Some internal views of a TC-K7B can be found here. Apart from the meters and very marginally better specs, TC-K8B = TC-K7B.