Kenwood rumored to shut down its home audio division

Going the way of such names as Sansui, Akai, etc.....

http://www.avrev.com/news/0305/25.kenwood.html

 

It doesn´t matter much to me. I have some Kenwood speakers (central and surrounds) and...

 

I'm not really surprised. As far as I'm concerned, Kenwood has been invisible for a few years now. They made a push with the Sovereign line of home-theater components about three years ago, but only for one generation. That line disappeared suddenly.

As a serious question, does Kenwood made any home-audio or home-theater components currently?

 

I agree that Kenwood has not been a player in hi fi for quite a while, but I am still saddened to see the loss of this name. Kenwood was one of the first Japanese brands to try to achieve some premium quality. I used for several years in the 80s a Kenwood KD-500 direct drive turntable with a distinctive "concrete resin" base. It was a nice product for the price.

 

Keith,

Kenwood has a whole-bunch of HT receivers available for pre-order at J&R.

Here're some pics of Kenwood gear from the recent CES in Las Vegas. Check out that 400-disc universal changer in the second photo!!

 

Hmmmm...I once owned two of their cassette decks...it wasn't bad, and it served me well for the hell I put it through.

I haven't really cared about Kenwood products since the early 80s, though. I thought the quality steadily went down over the last couple of decades.

 

Most of their late 1970s, early 1980s sound equipment was very well made, IMO.

 

Yeah, I remember my uncle's monster amps from... the early 1980's, I guess. He had a HUGE power amp and a pair of Kenwood speakers with 15" cones and horn tweeters. He used to threaten me with raising the volume so high, his house would fall down.

I used to get scared, too!

 

I've had a Sovereign VR-5070 home theater receiver since 2002. I'm using it as a pre/pro into a Parasound amp. can't help but be saddened by this news. the Kenwood gave me a nice entry into multi-channel sound.

Jeff

 

Well this sucks.

I guess just another casualty of MP3s and people that need visuals provided for them (i.e. they can't seem to listen to music & let their own imaginations provide the pictures).

When I worked at Incredible Universe back in 1995, they sold a Kenwood preamp/power amp combination that was featured in their THX room. They were built like a tank, nothing like their stuff at Best Buy. Solid metal faceplates, control knobs, etc, and the 5 channel power amp had to literally be lifted with your legs unless you wanted back problems. IIRC together they went for about $4K.

Every time I go into an audio department nowadays--at Best Buy, Tweeter, Circuit, CompUSA, etc--95% of the time I am the only person there. And most of the time there is no saleperson either & I don't blame them. Though personally I put a little bit of the blame on the stores because many times the equipment isn't even hooked up or if it is, it is hooked up incorrectly (out-of-phase speakers being a very prevalent ocurrance).