This just found its way out of the box today. Needs some cleaning, but it looks good. With any luck, it sounds good too. Kenwood KP-1100, which was the Japanese home market version of the KD-990. 
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A New Addition To The Audio Family-Kenwood KD-990/KP-1100
- Thread starter prime minister
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As soon as it allows me ti attach a picture, you will see it.
Finally. For some reason it didn‘t want to load that pic.
Beautiful! From the era of killer, high performing turntables.
What a Beauty! Enjoy it in good health!
Thanks, gents. I don’t expect it to come close to the Rega in performance. But it was the Top of The Line at Kenwood for the last years of serious turntable manufacturing. It’s a pretty special piece of engineering.
Here’s what she looks like under the skin. The plinth is just a hollow box.
A thing in some parts of the audio world is to remove the plinth, and rearm them with all manner of truly incredible arms. Or multiple arms.
Always been curious about those and the prices haven’t gone up much...yet.
I wonder how big of a step up this one is from the beloved KD-750...looks like we’ll know very soon!
I wonder how big of a step up this one is from the beloved KD-750...looks like we’ll know very soon!
Or this:
Other big improvement is that it has a coreless/slotless motor. Just like a new Technics 1200. So still state of the art as far as TT motors go.
‘’Then there is that frame.....
Prices are still oddly low for what was a top tier turntable at the time. Stock for stock it’s been compared well to the GT2000.
The one definite improvement is that it’s a vastly better tonearm, with knife edge bearings. It looks like one of those funky servo arms that was all the rage at the time, but it’s in fact a very well made, manual Arm. Cept it’s got auto lift at the end of the side. With the 750, it always felt like the arm was a bit thrown together. The arm being just a bit clunky. Like they burned through all the money and ran out before they could finish the arm. Or the feet!
Other big improvement is that it has a coreless/slotless motor. Just like a new Technics 1200. So still state of the art as far as TT motors go.
‘’Then there is that frame.....
Prices are still oddly low for what was a top tier turntable at the time. Stock for stock it’s been compared well to the GT2000.
Oh yeah. And it came with a super rare Denon DL-311LC cartridge. Probably a bit light for this arm, but good to experiment With.
Stolen interweb picture.
Stolen interweb picture.
Interesting - very Caterham/Lotus 7 - leave off all the pretty bits to get to the essence of the thing. Seeing the engineering under the skin and lipstick of some things, the parts that facilitate letting the whole perform a focused task well, can be beautiful in it's own way. I could see how almost everyone would not want this is their room - but I would; it just satisfies the engineering part of my brain (I'd love to have a Caterham Seven in the drive too
).Actually, jettisoning a resonant hollow plinth (that is there primarily to look good?) on a mechanical playback device like a turntable always did make sense to me - i.e. Oracle - which is what the above pic really looks like.
Looks more Terminator to me. But I like that.
Yup.Interesting - very Caterham/Lotus 7 - leave off all the pretty bits to get to the essence of the thing. Seeing the engineering under the skin and lipstick of some things, the parts that facilitate letting the whole perform a focused task well, can be beautiful in it's own way. I could see how almost everyone would not want this is their room - but I would; it just satisfies the engineering part of brain (I'd love to have a Caterham Seven in the drive too
Actually, jettisoning a resonant hollow plinth (that is there primarily to look good?) on a mechanical playback device like a turntable always did make sense to me - i.e. Oracle - which is what the above pic really looks like.
Thats all the plinth is there for. To look pretty. And to resonate.
I can’t imagine that a design that radical would have appealed to the average Kenwood shopper in the early 80s. But it does look very impressive Under the skin. And your Caterham reference is very fitting. One reason that I think these things haven’t taken off in the used market is that people don’t know what to make of it. Vintage tables are all about weight, so the spec sheet shoppers will notice that it’s LIGHT and give it a pass. It’s actually very Rega like in design, skeletal Frame with everything being super rigid. Except, Kenwood had the economies of scale to actual cast an aluminum frame, plus add a super high tech DD motor.
Other reason why they aren’t known well is that there wasn’t a US version of this table. Canada got the 990, but this was Totl Japanese Kenwood after the 07 got cancelled. They sold a ton of them over there, well into the 90’s. Yes, this was Kenwoods GT2000 competitor, and the sound quality of the base units, before you start adding all the factory GT2000 upgrades, is pretty well a wash.
