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Post by leonski on Jun 19, 2017 14:49:16 GMT -5
I loved my KA-7100. Decent power and even a 4 ohm rating. It even worked with my MG-1 panels, of fairly low sensitivity. The KA-9100 was the 'aspirational' piece for me, at that time. It even had METERS and lots of 'frill' features by todays standards. I'm no expert, but my KA-7100 is Still working for my nephew. And it's about 40 years on. Internally the preamp and amp sections are easily told apart. At one point? I wired some jumpers out to Single Ended male connectors and used it as just a preamp to my than=new Carver Cube. I'm going to be an Indian Giver and want that amp BACK. Neighbor guy was given a PAIR of KA-3100 to 'fix' or junk. He got one of 'em working and it ended up back with the original owner. The only amp from that 'era' I'd rather have would be the Sansui. I wanted one of those BAD. www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/kenwood/ka-7100.shtml |
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Post by graphic on Jun 19, 2017 15:34:14 GMT -5
I STILL love my Kenwood gear. I'm using 4 Basic M2 amps for seven channels in the theater. Fast, quiet, sturdy and off the chart damping. The Sigma drive is quite interesting too. In my two channel set up I have the Kenwood Basic C2 preamp, and Basic M2A amp. These are mid-80's vintage, but still going strong. They are full of unobtainium parts, and once they break it's a rack full of XPAs, but until then nothing 'affordable' can outperform them.
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Post by Gary Cook on Jun 19, 2017 15:58:33 GMT -5
Kenwood .................. Haven't heard that name for a long time. A friend of mine back in the high school days, his father had Kenwood gear. He had a "sound room", it was about 5 metres long by 4 meters wide with a one seater recliner, big brown natural leather thing, in the centre. One wall was completely covered with a 4 metre X 3 metre timber unit full of shiny silver Kenwood gear, lights and meters. A pair of semi built in speakers, big suckers with brown and silver cloth grills. The rest of the wall shelves were full of vinyl, hundreds of LP's. Whenever I went there after school the gear was powered up but his dad wasn't home from work, so he must have left it on 24/7. I never heard it, we weren't even allowed in the room, let alone touch anything. Lucky, it might have started my hifi addiction 5 years earlier than it did. Thanks for the memories, I'd almost forgotten about Kenwood.
Cheers
Gary
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Post by mountain on Jun 19, 2017 16:05:27 GMT -5
I have never owned a Kenwood product. After hearing and playing with a silver '70's model integrated amp rated at 40 watts / channel @ 8 ohms, , I recommended it to several people. It was great for the price at that time. Made the 4 ohm small advent loudspeaker sing!
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KeithL
Administrator 
Posts: 9,944
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Post by KeithL on Jun 19, 2017 16:19:59 GMT -5
Kenwood is still around... or, at least, the name is. However, they now seem to make mostly car stereo equipment. (They made my car audio/video/navi unit.) Kenwood .................. Haven't heard that name for a long time. A friend of mine back in the high school days, his father had Kenwood gear. He had a "sound room", it was about 5 metres long by 4 meters wide with a one seater recliner, big brown natural leather thing, in the centre. One wall was completely covered with a 4 metre X 3 metre timber unit full of shiny silver Kenwood gear, lights and meters. A pair of semi built in speakers, big suckers with brown and silver cloth grills. The rest of the wall shelves were full of vinyl, hundreds of LP's. Whenever I went there after school the gear was powered up but his dad wasn't home from work, so he must have left it on 24/7. I never heard it, we weren't even allowed in the room, let alone touch anything. Lucky, it might have started my hifi addiction 5 years earlier than it did. Thanks for the memories, I'd almost forgotten about Kenwood. Cheers Gary |
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Post by graphic on Jun 19, 2017 17:56:15 GMT -5
I thought they only had car audio too, but my JVC RS-400 is labeled "JVCKenwood" on the box and all the literature. Who knew?
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Post by petew on Jun 19, 2017 18:07:26 GMT -5
I had a KA-7300 back in the day. I bought it while I was still in high school, so probably '75 or '76. The build quality was top notch, performance however wasn't that great. It had a big IC chip amp "large IC darlington power block". I had both channels fail at different times, thankfully under warranty. Worked for the long haul after that but sound greatly improved when I added an external Carver power amp. Still, it was pretty nice for a high schooler and poor college student.  |
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Post by leonski on Jun 19, 2017 18:55:03 GMT -5
I THINK the '300 series was an 'upgrade' from the '100 series. The KA-7100 I owned had from 3100 to 9100 'in series'. The M2 Kenwood amps are well regarded for their time. I know a guy who has a pair with some Vintage JBL and it is both decent sounding and 'period correct'. The Kenwood of today? Car Stuff? That's gotta hurt. I wonder who owns 'em now? For that matter, what happened to all the rest of the 'heyday' gear of the late 70s / early 80s? This classy looking old Sansui would look nice in an all-vintage setup www.ebay.com/itm/Sansui-AU-777-stereo-integrated-amplifier-in-wood-case-Just-serviced-/253000651323All those buttons, knobs and Switches! Wow! Me Want |
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Post by Loop 7 on Jun 19, 2017 20:23:36 GMT -5
As Keith remarked, Kenwood has a large presence in car audio.
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Post by Gary Cook on Jun 19, 2017 22:38:14 GMT -5
Kenwood merged with JVC in 2008 and the merged company is called JVC Kenwood.
Cheers
Gary
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Post by rossonero3 on Jun 20, 2017 8:20:38 GMT -5
I still have my Kenwood KA-5700 integrated, although it's been sitting in my workshop sadly not being used for a while now. It's the stereo that really brought me back into this hobby and made me realize how much I prefer a good channel stereo over any modern multi-channel AVR w/ processing etc. This really is a sweet little stereo and you'd never know it was 'only' rated at 40w x ch!  |
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Post by hondaman01 on Mar 11, 2018 19:45:27 GMT -5
I had a KA-7300 back in the day. I bought it while I was still in high school, so probably '75 or '76. The build quality was top notch, performance however wasn't that great. It had a big IC chip amp "large IC darlington power block". I had both channels fail at different times, thankfully under warranty. Worked for the long haul after that but sound greatly improved when I added an external Carver power amp. Still, it was pretty nice for a high schooler and poor college student. |
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Post by hondaman01 on Mar 11, 2018 19:48:06 GMT -5
I found one of those with tuner. Gave tuner away, it worked, amp not so much. 100$ to clean and diagnose. 200 or so to fix. So.... U'll find it in the dumpster. Oh well.
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Post by audiobill on Mar 12, 2018 4:32:32 GMT -5
Look at all the stuff they used to put in the signal path!!
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Post by Ex_Vintage on Aug 22, 2018 21:10:51 GMT -5
My first stereo gear was Kenwood. I bought a Kenwood KA7300 in 1976. Paired the Kenwood with a Dynaco FM-5 tuner, a Wollensak cassette, BIC turntable and a pair of JBL L-36 Decade speakers. That hardware (and some puts and takes)served me until about 2 years ago. Of course life and kids interrupted my music listening enjoyment, but I resurrected (re-capped) the Kenwood and re-coned the JBL's and re-kindled my enjoyment of music listening. Along the way, I found a Kenwood 600 Supreme amp in a antique shop and had to have it. I re-capped that amp and thought I had some fine listening. Well after some research and auditioning, I purchased some Emo gear and Elac speakers, and there is no looking back. I still have a definite respect for old hardware though, but my ears like sound not sentimentality.
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Post by dsonyay on Aug 25, 2018 13:48:58 GMT -5
I have a Kenwood Basic C2 Pre Amp for S
sale now and soon its matching M2 Amp as well (as soon as I decide on anEmotiva amp.
pm if interested.. the C2,premap is 170 but I haven't listed in Emporiom yet.
david
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Post by AudioHTIT on Aug 25, 2018 17:20:43 GMT -5
... Young Kenwood ...  ... actually, young Bruce (who sold Kenwood at the time) |
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Post by vcautokid on Aug 25, 2018 19:14:10 GMT -5
Kenwood is still around... or, at least, the name is. However, they now seem to make mostly car stereo equipment. (They made my car audio/video/navi unit.) Kenwood .................. Haven't heard that name for a long time. A friend of mine back in the high school days, his father had Kenwood gear. He had a "sound room", it was about 5 metres long by 4 meters wide with a one seater recliner, big brown natural leather thing, in the centre. One wall was completely covered with a 4 metre X 3 metre timber unit full of shiny silver Kenwood gear, lights and meters. A pair of semi built in speakers, big suckers with brown and silver cloth grills. The rest of the wall shelves were full of vinyl, hundreds of LP's. Whenever I went there after school the gear was powered up but his dad wasn't home from work, so he must have left it on 24/7. I never heard it, we weren't even allowed in the room, let alone touch anything. Lucky, it might have started my hifi addiction 5 years earlier than it did. Thanks for the memories, I'd almost forgotten about Kenwood. Cheers Gary Mostly in spirit only. They are joined together with JVC now. So now it is JVC/Kenwood. For better or worse. If you are looking for that greatness of the old with Kenwood, you maybe saddened as for the most part it is a mere shadow of former greater self. I used to follow them quite a bit especially with short wave radios too. Trio Kenwood to be specific. It was very quality stuff. For something that is 40 years old I would consider making sure the Capacitors are doing what they should be. Replacing them with new quality ones if needed. Otherwise keep the controls clean, feed it clean power and away you go. Allot of this merger stuff has been going on. Pioneer and Onkyo have joined forces as well as of course Denon and Marantz are together too. One company that does intrigue me is Technics. Some new high end audio gear looks mighty tasty. But you will pay dearly for them. Their Direct Drive Turntable is back and ready and that too will make you faint at the price tag. Well if you spin vinyl you want a good one right? |
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Post by leonski on Aug 26, 2018 2:09:00 GMT -5
Replacing caps is a GOOD idea on any amp 30+ years old. 'just because' is a good enough reason at that point.
I'd forgotton about Kewood SW receivers. 5000 was a pretty decent piece. You had to spend a lot more on a Japan Radio or Lowe or much later, a DRAKE R-8, still something I'd own.
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