Kenwood Corporation is a manufacturer of amateur radio as well as Hi-Fi and portable audio equipment. The company first started in California as Trio, had manufacturing in Japan. In the early 1960s, The Lafayette Radio Company (went defunct around 1979 due to competitors and poor investment in FCC-banned CB radios) rebranded and sold Trio's products. The significant production strides Kenwood has made was design and manufacture Japan's first FM tuner and solid-state amplifier. Also, this company has contributed to the industry with an audio/video system (home theater today) in 1981, of which in the same year the company introduced an amplifier with audio/video switching capabilities (which is commonly called today as the A/V Receiver) and is currently concentrating in Asian and American markets. In 1983, Trio-Kenwood became Kenwood Corporation. In 1984, the company designed and manufactured the first anti-theft car stereo receiver. Recently, the Sovereign line of components was introduced in 2001. (The Sovereign line is comparable to prestige brands of other manufacturers Pioneer Elite, Sony ES, Onkyo Integra, Matsushita Technics.)
Notable Products
L-series Product Line
In the late 1970's Kenwood embarked on what was to become their signature High-end Hifi gear, the famous L-series. Starting with the L-05, 7 & 9 pre/power amplifiers, the L-07T tuner and the L-07D DD turntable. In 1979 they started the New-Separate amplifier series with the L-01A amplifier and matching L-01T tuner. Their biggest statement in High-End audio came in 1982 with the L-02A amplifier and L-02T Tuner, especially the L-02T is regarded as one of the best tuners ever made.
Sigma Drive
Under construction
D.R.I.V.E.
DRIVE stands for Dynamic Resolution Intensive Vector Enhancement. This IC invented in the early 1990's, hugely enhances soft signals in CD-players by interpreting the signal and then relaying it through various filters in order to recreate as close as possible the signal as it was recorded. Many improvements were released with new versions of the DRIVE IC's.
T.R.A.I.T.
TRAIT stands for Thermally Reactive Advanced Instantanious Transistor. This means that the thermocouple neccessery to compensate temperature effects in power transistors is housed inside the transistor instead of the traditional place on the heatsink. This minimizes the timedifference between actual the temperature of the transistor and measured temperature of the heatsink. This improves the soundquality of the amplified signal (more details later)
TRAIT transistors have 5 pins instead of the normal 3 (Base, Collector, Emitter) TRAIT transistors, manufactured by Sanken Electronics, where used in the mid 1990's for the first time in Kenwood amplifiers.
TrueX Optical Drives
In 1998, Kenwood released the TrueX line of personal computer CD-ROM drives, first at the speed of 40x, then 52x and 72x. The TrueX CD-ROM drives use a low rotational speed (approximately 6x to 10x) with seven laser pickups functioning in parallel to read data at faster overall speeds.
Not to be confused with
Kenwood Appliance, which is now owned by DeLonghi, is a British appliance manufacturer, markets various kitchen appliances in the United Kingdom, United States under the its brand. Examples are mixers, egg cookers, and food processors.
The difference is the "K" stylized in red, instead of the Kenwood (Electronics) Corporation with a stylized "W" in red.
The companies are not related to each other, except by name similarities.
External link