Sony TA-E77ESD

Not counting the big league ESPRIT preamplifiers, the TA-E77ESD was Sony's first preamp since the late 1970s' TA-E7B or TA-E88B. And there never was an ES preamplifier/amplifier combo in Japan, before the 77 combo... or after.
The E77ESD is the companion to the TA-N77ES pôwerhouse.

Feeding everybody is a large toroidal transformer plus a small transformer for the logic circuits. The toroidal however is a little lie : it really a regular EI potted into a round enclosure !

Nevertheless, multiple windings feed separately the digital and analog sections, all separated by copper bus bars and a very clean main board. Naturally, the E77ESD rests on a G-base.
Other parts are typical Sony (Nichicon Muse and Elna Duorex etc) and the two main caps are 4,700µF Elna Great Supply. Output impedance is a low 45 Ohm.

The E77ESD was Sony's equivalent of Denon's DAP-5500 - better looking, though. Made to accept the sources which, then, were starting to offer digital outputs : CD, DAT, ED Beta and Laserdisc.

But that wasn't much to justify a dedicated preamp, considering that DAT never made it and Sony's politics toward Laserdisc were -even then- rather discrete.
Mostly, the evolution of digital chips was then still raging and that made for the included d/a converters quick "obsolescence".
However, unlike Denon's units, the TA-E77ESD sold extremely well worldwide !

Available as well, but quite discreetely and only in the north-American market as a TA-E77ES, sans "D" : doing away with the S-Video i/o terminals and all digital circuitry but retaining the composite video i/os.
Very very rare version of which I unfortunately have not a single image.

The TA-E77ESD was replaced by the strictly analog TA-E80ES in 1989 ; the latter borrowed some of its panel functions and layout but the structure and internal design were very different.
The TA-E80ES went on the be just as successful as its elder, although by then the USA strangely started to greet Sony's high-end units with marked indifference...

In Europe, however, there are as many E77ESDs as E80ESs - and that total makes plenty.