Kenwood /
trio corporation
|
|||||||
|
KENWOOD is with one of those Japanese companies
that has been known "forever". And it started with the mid 50's
and exporting to the USA. Back then, the Trio sold a wide range of
tube products there; receivers, tuners, amplifiers and
communication equipment for professionals and amateurs. The
company's history began in the mid-1940s with the production of
coils. Ten years after its inception, the company began to export
electronic equipment, starting with tube tuners. Then other
products came and in the first half of the 60's KENWOOD offered a
wide range of products ranging from tuners to integrated
amplifiers and ending with receivers. Until 1960, the company used
a different name - Kasuga Radio Industry Corporation. The next
name was Trio Electronics, Inc. Under this name, the company
exported its products all over the world, but a different brand
name was invented for the American market - KENWOOD (apparently it
was a combination of the name Ken and the word Hollywood). It is
worth mentioning that this company also supplied "brand" companies
such as LAFAYETTE. The vast majority of their products had a
letter-digit designation. The letters defining the tube products
were "KW" supplemented with the numbers of subsequent products.
The last in this series was the KW 1100 receiver. This product was
also their highest in terms of power, size and weight. The power
amplifier was based on 7591 tubes controlled by a double tube
6AN8A - a triode with a pentode. In parallel to this model, models based on EL84 end lamps in the PP or SE system were produced. The specificity of the amplifiers was the widespread use of 6AN8 driver tubes. The offers were completed by models working on ECL82 lamps in the PP system. Electronically, they were quite similar, the power supply was usually a silicon rectifier in the voltage doubler circuit, the phono preamplifier always on double ECC83 triodes. In better models, KENWOOD used better sensitivity FM heads on two ECC85 or on the 6CW4 and ECC85 nuwistor. KENWOOD or TRIO branded equipment had two types of design; the first in the 50's style with pastel finishes, gilded sheets, plastic knobs and the second in the 60's style with a simple aluminum front and bakelite knobs. While SANSUI and PIONEER products are often found in Europe, KENWOOD receivers are less often available on this continent. The exception is the KW-33 model, often found in Europe and sold under the TRIO brand. Its counterpart for the American market was the Kenwood KW-44. The only difference between them was the ability to work with 230V power supply. At the same time, they were the smallest stereo receivers of this company. The power amplifier was based on ECL82 tubes working in the Push & Pull configuration. A common practice of the TRIO / KENWOOD was to change the design leaving the electronic circuit identical. These two models had a predecessor with a design in the style of the 1950s KW-30. Tube receivers from this company, especially those with a design from the 1950s, are easy to recognize and hard to confuse with other products, and their "vintage" look is eye-catching. The sound of tube Kenwoods and Trio is hard to fault, decent constructions sound despite the passage of more than forty years. |
||||||
Main
page Previous Page Contact
L.A.2008