Sony ST-A5

Familiar but not so familiar, the ST-A5 is a very close sibling to the ST-A6B bestseller.
In fact, it is nearly the same FM tuner !

Centerpiece, the 7-gang varicap and low-pass filters are the very same as that of the ST-A6B and the specifications of both units are very close and identical in many points such as useable sensitivity, s/n ratios, thd, quieting, image rejection and capture ratios.
Unfortunately the two japanese catalogs I have only display a limited amount of specifications but what is displayed is exactly identical with those of the ST-A6B...

The economy consists of not so glorious looks and front finish, only one LED (stereo), no variable output, no multipath indicator switch and no 400Hz test tone generator.
No ES-II design, either. Inside, the similarity is however quite obvious with only differences in the HF and audio outputs - got to make some buck-savings to offer this quality at 39,800¥.

We're not in the ST-A7B league, of course, but close enough for the price : an ST-A6B only cost 10,000¥ more (49,800¥) while the ST-A7B masterpiece tripled that to make FM Nirvana accessible at 158,000¥.
Under the ST-A5 was the AM/FM ST-A4 which, visually almost identical, really was on the much lower end of things but still cost... 35,800¥ !

So, obviously, Sony made a big effort to offer a 7-gang FM-only tuner at 39,800¥ (ST-A5) and recovered some tangible profit by selling a 4-gang FM/AM tuner (ST-A4) at nearly the same price !

However, sadly, stupidly, almost previsibly since we're in Sony territory, the ST-A5 was apparently NOT available outside Japan - at least not in France nor Germany. Anyone in the UK or Sweden or Denmark with an ST-A5 ?

Made to feed the TA-F5 in Japan and TA-F5A elsewhere (that is : if the A5 was elsewhere as well...).