Category: Vintage Hi-Fi

We all have our hobbies obsessions.

I spotted this beauty on eBay a couple days ago. It's a Kenwood KR-7400 stereo receiver, dating from 1975. It's the same model receiver I'd owned since 2005—thinking it would be the last bit of vintage gear I'd ever want or need because it sounded so phenomenal—but foolishly let go of in the aftermath of the fire 18 months ago. The auction described it as "powering up and playing, but no other testing was done." Except for a few minor scuffs on the veneered edge panels, it is in excellent cosmetic condition.

The auction had a buy-it-now price I could not ignore. I should have it by the end of the week. I'm calling it an early birthday present to myself.

To be honest, at the time of the fire I hadn't been using its predecessor. But I didn't want to ever get rid of it. It was stored in the den closet, one of two areas that bore the brunt of water damage. I'd also somewhat fallen out of love with it with the arrival of my quirky Technics units a few months earlier and frankly, it needed some TLC that I did not have the skill set to provide. (I attempted to swap out the burnt out incandescent dial lights with LEDs and let's just say I was not happy with the results.)

Still, as the months drew on, I regretted abandoning it. This prompted the purchase a year ago of the model that came out a year later that replaced it, the KR-6600. As excellent a receiver the 6600 is, I've never been fully enamored of it.

Ironically, it was that purchase that prompted me to search out a competent vintage service tech because while it worked just fine, it arrived with a few minor issues that needed to be addressed (not the least of which were the 40 year-old undoubtedly long-out-of-spec capacitors lurking under that metal top case that the previous owner specifically noted had not been replaced).

And that is why the quirky Technics units went north to be refurbished first. While the tech I found came highly recommended by the vintage community, I didn't want to risk having that new-to-me Kenwood trashed; the Technics units would be a test to show me if the guy knew what he was doing.

And as I mentioned, he more than proved himself.

So…depending on the actual condition this new purchase arrives in, either it or the 6600 will be the next project for my technician.

 

October 1999. I don't really remember the events leading up to it, but I must've been bored at work and thought I'd start throwing out some search terms on eBay. Imagine my surprise therefore, when this beauty from 1979 came up in the results.

I remember when these first arrived on the scene. I was entranced by the design. Similar to Pioneer of the era, but the LED power meters were definitely something new. (These came out around the same time as the quirky C01 series components.) I don't remember at this point if I saw these or the C01 series first, but in any case I was blown away.

Then I priced this series of receivers. The higher-end models with all the bells and whistles (which, naturally, I wanted) were out way out of my budget even back in 1979.

But on eBay 20 years later? Bidding was modest. Initial bid was $79, and by the time I jumped into the fray it was around $135 as I recall. I put in a bid for $200 and waited.

Several days later, I got notice that I'd won the bidding. I got this monster for $159! After several months of use, however, I began to miss my old Yamaha gear and ultimately replaced that and ended up selling the Technics. I can't tell you how much I wish I'd held onto it (like an embarrassingly large number of so many other pieces of hifi that have passed through my hands over the years).

I couldn't find any current listings for this model on eBay, but this auction shows how much these units have appreciated over the last 20 years since those heady first days of eBay.

Pioneer beauty from the late 1970s.

I saw this on Instagram the other day. It was posted by the place where I bought my vintage JBL speakers. I asked how much they were wanting for it, knowing full well it had been fully restored and would be way out of my budget, and it was: $7K.

Once a stereo geek, always a stereo geek.  And I apologize to no one.

Akai's design aesthetic was spot on back in the day.

And it's even naked.

It's been a week since I received the Kenwood, and I've had plenty of time now to get acquainted with the new acquisition.

Upon closer inspection, I think the seller having described it as "mint" was a bit of an exaggeration. "Near-mint" would have been my honest assessment. There wasn't just the one top panel screw missing from the case, but an additional four were gone from the bottom panel as well. I was able to find a source for the screws and it's all buttoned up nicely now, but if it were truly mint I wouldn't have had to do that. All of the plastic escutcheons around the three toggle switches on the front panel are in various degrees of brokenness. Not a deal breaker by any means (it's barely noticeable), but finding replacements for those is far more problematic and from what I've read, these things being broken is a pretty common occurrence. So even locating a front panel for sale with these parts attached is no guarantee they'd still be be intact after 45 years. Again, not mint.

And despite my own application of contact cleaner and Deoxit, both of the two "Acoustic" toggle switches produce a loud pop the first time they're flipped after powering on, but are silent upon with each subsequent activation (as long as you don't turn the receiver off). Not an issue, because the feature isn't something I anticipate ever using. But again, not mint.

I'm not completely thrilled with the seller's choice of color for the dial and indicator LEDs he used as replacements for the incandescent bulbs on the Kenny. He went with a very warm white—possibly even orange-yellow—color which looks good for the source indicators and tuning meters, but really dulls the aqua of the main tuner dial. (It looks much brighter in photos—and actually what you'd expect it to look like—than in person.)

On the positive side, the build quality of this receiver is what you'd expect for a unit like this from the time period. In other words, exemplary.  The controls are silky-smooth and absolutely reek quality.  You're unlikely to find anything like this in todays equipment unless you reach up into the atmospheric price range of "audiophile" gear.

The sound of the Kenny is the one thing that is absolutely preventing me from boxing it up and re-listing it. Listening both through my JBLs and through my headphones, the sound is amazing—and that's what all this is about, after all. Whether it's vinyl, FM, or Spotify via Apple TV, it is so much better than what the Technics components produced. Is it my dream vintage system? No, not by a long shot, but it's one I am happy enough with that I'm in no hurry to get rid of it.

Okay, there was absolutely nothing wrong with my beloved Technics Micro Series components. Since they re-entered my life three years ago, I've loved the hell out of 'em—despite my feeling that since they hadn't received proper service since they rolled off the assembly line, with a good recapping and adjustment they could sound even better.

At the same time, I've been beating myself up over the fact that I let my Kenwood KR-7400 receiver—that I'd owned since 2005—be relinquished into the hands of the restoration company who promptly declared it unsalvageable and trashed it. Like the Technics components, it was way overdue for a complete recapping, adjustment, and a proper installation of LED dial lights (a job I attempted myself but the results of which were ultimately disappointing; another case of me thinking I knew what I was doing but really didn't). With everything else that was happening in the aftermath of the fire, in my mind it was easier to just get rid of it.

I've regretted that decision almost from the moment it left my life.

I missed the Kenwood "sound," but wasn't really sure I wanted another 7400 since there were so many other choices out there.

Backstory

The KR-7400 was the receiver that my high school friend Gary bought new in 1974. As I'm sure I've probably recounted elsewhere in this blog, when he left for a two week summer vacation between our junior and senior years, he let me borrow his entire system while he was gone and the 7400 was the centerpiece. I grew to love that receiver, and whatever other equipment I'd set my sights on immediately faded into obscurity (until I heard my first V-FET amp, at least). When I actually had the funds to buy something a year later, the 7400 had been discontinued, replaced by the KR-7600.

I hated the entire "X600" line. Even though the 7600 had more power than the 7400, it lacked a lot of the features that drew me to the previous model, and frankly, I thought it was just downright  fugly.

Today

Despite my initial impressions, Kenwood's "X600" series held my attention over the years, and when I thought I might want to acquire a replacement of the 7400 that I let go of after the fire, quite a few of this later series were available on eBay.

The 7600's up for auction were uniformly beat up, but a KR-6600 (basically all the same functions with only a slightly lower power rating) caught my eye. It was near mint, and the owner indicated it had been completely cleaned, pots lubricated with DeOxit, all panel bulbs replaced with LEDs and the BIAS on the amp adjusted. It was not recapped, but he assured me the caps had been tested were still in great condition. (Based on the number of other vintage units he'd sold and his feedback there was no reason to doubt him.) It had a "Buy It Now" option, so I said what the hell…and just like I'd done with the Technics components, I went for it. I figured the worst case scenario would be that if It failed to meet my expectations I could always box it back up and resell it on eBay myself (there were 76 watchers on the original auction).

It arrived yesterday, packed like a tank; packed by someone for whom this was not his first trip to the rodeo. It's not mint, but it's probably as close to mint as I was going to find for what I paid. It's missing a top case screw (something I was aware of) and has a bit of a scrape on the right end of the faceplate, but it's not that noticeable and certainly not anything I can't live with.

I hadn't had a chance to have an extended listening session until this afternoon, and I can say without reservation I'm blown away. As I said before, while there was nothing wrong with the Technics units, I now have a signal source worthy of my JBL's.

Even more now than when I first got the JBLs, good recordings absolutely sing, whereas every flaw in poor recordings is mercilessly revealed.

Am I crazy for doing this? Probably. If nothing else, I can now send the Technics units off for recapping and adjustment and not be without tunes for the 6-8 weeks months that's expected to take. But—not unsurprisngly after my listening session today—it's not a priority.

Hopefully this will be my last major post-fire purchase until Apple brings out the new 14-inch M1 MacBook Pro.

Oh my goddess.

I watch entirely too many vintage audio videos on YouTube. They give me too many ideas.

A recent video reminded me of the very first—and probably best sounding if nearly forgotten—pair of high-end headphones I ever owned..

The backstory—something that is for some reason forever burned in my memory—revolves around auditioning a pair of electrostatic Stax Lambda Pro headphones in a LaBelle's Catalog Showroom in the late 70s. I even remember the record I listened to. Okay that's a lie. I don't remember exactly. It was either The Fantasy Film World of Bernard Herrmann or The Mysterious Film World of Bernard Herrmann. It was a Bernard Hermann LP in any case.

I fell in love.

Electrostatic anything was pretty rare back then (a set of Magnapans, the most sought after loudspeakers in the world at that time, could easily you back the price of a luxury sports car), so at $450 ($1620 in today's dollars), the price tag attached to those Stax headphones was also…prohibitive…on a high school student's income.

That doesn't mean I didn't lust after them.

But you know, sometimes the universe smiles upon you, and I soon learned (even though LaBelle's didn't carry them) that Stax also produced a much more affordable set of electret "earspeakers" as they were called, at about a quarter the cost. (Essentially one type needs a separate AC power supply to function, and the other is self-powered, even though both require a separate box hooked to the speaker outputs on your receiver/amplifier. Beyond that, the principle of how they function is very similar.*)

While my original pair of SR-44's were stolen out of the trunk of my car back in 1989 (don't ask what they were doing in there), over the years I've done a cursory search on Ebay now and then and was always disappointed to see them selling for an outrageous amount of money—or at least more than I was willing to spend. I'd all but forgotten about them until I saw them on a YouTube video a couple weeks ago and so I went searching again.

There were several available in varying condition. All were supposedly functional, but several looked as if they'd been through hell and back (much like a lot of the Technics 1200 turntables you see for sale). But then I ran across one that looked nearly new. The seller confirmed that everything was working, so I put in a bid, never expecting to actually win the auction.

Well, I did. They arrived yesterday.

Okay, keeping in mind that my high frequency sensitivity is shit compared to what it was when I first owned these cans back in 1979, they still sound amazingly good. Amazingly.

 

*Please correct me if I'm mistaken on this. I'm sorta working from memory here and we all know how unreliable that is.

Stop laughing. I can be generous.

I rediscovered these items in notebooks that I almost did not retrieve after the fire. I'm glad I did. I foolishly let go of many things that I now wish—if I'd been in a better headspace—I'd kept.

I don't know if any of my dear readers have a want or need, but I created some high quality scans of them and they are available for your downloading pleasure.

Brochure
Operating Instructions
Service Manual