SONY TCD-D8

This is a good, clear photo’ of the Sony TCD-D8, which is presumably the next upgrade model relative to the TCD-D7, one of the models in the “Digital Audio Tape” series of products Sony produced. And, to begin with, as I observed earlier this morning, the machinery in the TCD-D7 must have been more sophisticated than almost any cassette-deck mechanism (in a Walkman or otherwise) that was based on the older Philips-style “Compact Cassette,” known to most people simply as the “audiocassette.”

By the way, earlier today I read several of the last comments in the very long-running topic “Cool Stuff For Sale Mega-Thread” started in August 2018 by Mister X, who’s now an S2G moderator. That’s where I came across comments from Valentin about the Sony TCD-D7, a unit of which he worked on to get it in good condition. (Good going. Wish I could find someone as skillful to work – again! – on the so-called “solenoid-controlled” cassette-deck mechanisms of my still-faulty “King Of Boomboxes,” my Sansui CP-99W here in America …)



Oh, and are the TCD-D-series Sony recorders from the ‘80s or the ‘90s?

The TCD-Dx series is from the 90s. The first one was TCD-D3, followed by TCD-D7, TCD-D8 and TCD-D100.I'm refrerring only to the walkmans here, as there was also the TCD-D10, which was a portable recorder, comparable in dimensions to the TC-D5.

The history goes like this:
- the TCD-D3 1991-1992.
- the TCD-D7 1993-1994
- the TCD-D8 1995-2000
- the TCD-D100 launched in 1997

The TCD-D8 is a little upgrade over the D7, but they are 95% identical. The notable differences are: different color, red/silver rec button and orange/black pause button, gold plated jacks on D8, automatic head cleaning on the D8, 44.1Khz sampling rate on the D8, in addition to 48Khz and 32Khz.
The D8 also has an instant sleep mode: when you put the unit on hold, it automatically unloads the tape and goes into sleep. The D7 has a timer of a couple of minutes.

DAT machines are much more sophisticated than compact cassettes, they use helical scan and a rotary head like in VHS. Given your interest, I am going to put some pictures with the mechanism, as I'm sure other are interested too.