Sony TA-N80ES

Unlike the contemporary ES integrated amps from Sony , the TA-N80ES was export-only and not released in Japan.

Also "only" a rebadged/modded TA-N77ES, the N80ES was however released in three different versions wich I'll allow myself to chronologically name Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3.

Mk1 same power transformer and boards as the TA-N77ES,

Mk2 encapsulated transformer and different boards' material and arrangement,

Mk3 two encapsulated toroidal trafos with again different boards' arrangements.

USA sold units were Mk1s, multi-voltage units were Mk2s while european units only were Mk3s.
Mk2s and Mk3s both had a half-sized protection board ; all three versions had two more big caps (4700µF / 80V) on the main power board.

The sometimes problematic meters of the TA-N77ES were banned and a pair of true/false balanced inputs thrown in for good measure.
The N80ES (like the N77ES) however is a single-ended design : unfortunately, this addition was made using rather low-end componentry.

Like several contemporary Sony amps (TA-NR1 and TA-NR10 included), the heatsink really doesn't have that much area to dissipate heat. And the N80ES generates a LOT of it, this being the cause of many problems and/or death : it needs much more ventilation than its top cover allows - I for one partly remove it while listening to music.

Still, the TA-N80ES does dynamically drive any loudspeakers you may wish to torment it with. And just like the N77ES the N80ES can be bridged in mono and thus put out more power than loudspeakers would know what to do with...

Much more often shown in its champagne guise, the N80ES was mostly sold in black ; the champagne version wasn't available in the USA and is rare in Europe.

Alongwith the TA-E80ES preamp, the TA-N80ES was junked at the ES turning point and replaced by the TA-N90ES. The heat problem was addressed and the latter sported TWO heatsinks - but t didn't sell nearl as well.