Great sound quality and plenty of power to spare.

speaker terminals

This is by far the most complete full-featured receiver that Kenwood or any other company for that matter has ever made.. Back in 1979 when I was in the navy, my ship was under way for Japan. It wouldn’t be until 6 mos before we arrived. So all of the electronic Tec’s sent away for all the information on every receiver and amp that was available that year. Including the Pioneer SX-1280, Sansui G-9700, Yamaha CR-2020, Marantz 2330BD and the Kenwood 9600. So the Tec’s studied all the literature for 6 mos and all of them bought the Kenwood eleven GX. So I copied them and bought the same. The combo of features is incredible. It has a REAL Dolby system. Meaning instead of a switch that you either turn on or off. Its Dolby system is adjustable. Because every recording requires a different measurement of Dolby. This isn’t just one of those filters that clean up hiss but kill the symbols in the process. This Dolby system cleans and in the process makes the dynamic range wider. Therefore you get a better signal to noise ratio. It has a separate Dolby decoder for the FM. I wouldn’t be without the Dolby system for my vinyl. It cleans up ticks and pops on vinyl while leaving the source completely undisturbed. The mic mixing is another great feature. I have been playing my bass guitar through there for the 25 years that I’ve had it. Instead of high and low buttons (either on or off options) this receiver has adjustable filters. So if you want the button on just a little bit and not full you have that option. Most receivers they are either on or off. Sometimes on is too much and off is not enough. The five-band equalizer is the most sensitive EQ I have ever operated. Great compression. Just barely move the slide and the sound changes quite a bit. I’m running electrovoice mids and highs and a 15in dual voice coil black widow and I have never had any of the sliders over the flat position. The low frequency sliders are almost at the very bottom and the bass is still incredibly strong. There are more powerful receivers out there but none with these features and sound quality. This is the best sounding receiver that Kenwood ever made.115 d/b s/n ratio. It’s the biggest and heaviest also. Almost 70 lbs. I’ve probably had 40 to 50 other receivers hooked up to the same set of speakers and if any of them sounded better, then that would be what I would be listening to today. I think it’s more beautiful than any other receiver I’ve seen. These were never available to the public. Only military personnel. It would have cost over $2000.00 for all those features packed in. Four of my friends now have one after hearing mine. I’ve bought a few broken ones and repaired them for my friends. We kind of have a club. 120 watts per channel 3 sets of speakers a two hour timer, 2 phonos, 2 tape plays, 2tape monitors that interloop with the Dolby system for coding and decoding and for playback and recording .Aux and mike mixing. Unit does get hot so I installed a fan. Now she’s running cool. I plan on having it another 25 years. Worst thing about this receiver is the screw on speaker terminals (hassle) so I replaced them with the push button holes. Hate hearing about people getting rid of their vintage receivers just to get surround sound when they could keep the vintage receivers and just add on a surround sound processor. These new receivers just don’t have the sound quality and they all have a much lower dynamic range and signal to noise ratio.

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marantz,pioneer,sansui

1) - Enough power to double as an Arc Welder 2) - Tuner section 3) - Silver faced powerhouse from the mid 70s

1) - Little Bitty speaker terminals, spring clips at that. Anything over 16ga wire is too big. 2) - No spare parts. 3) - Too big and too heavy.

Gorgeous silver faced vintage TOTL Kenwood war wagon. Enough power to light a small town yet sweet enough to hear details at all volume levels. Great tuner, gets my wife's Oldies station without an antenna where my stand alone tuners have a hard time getting it period. Buyers market right now with prices about half what a Pioneer SX-1250 would sell for. Love these old Kenwoods. . . best tuners going in a receiver not to mention two phono circuits, not just 2 inputs but 2 circuits. This thing is much much more than just balls to the walls power. What a great receiver.

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Other TOTL receivers from the period SX-1250/1050/850 Kenwood KR-5600/7600 Kenwood KA-1100SD/3300D

Pure strong power, no need to turn it up past 2 or 3.

Minor stuff, static in the switches sometimes makes you have to flick them back and forth, nothing really though.

I mortgaged my car in 1980 to buy this KR 9600. It came in a nice stand with a reel to reel, phono, and speakers. Almost 25 years later, the phono and reel are replaced with DVD and digital music, but the 9600 is still going strong. Just yesterday I broke down, went to Circuit City and bought a digital reciever, and some small surround speakers, and a subwoofer. I felt like I was a trader putting my old friend down, but I needed a remote control and all the modern stuff, right? Suffice it to say that all that new junk has been boxed back up and returned to the store. I couldn't believe how much better the old Kenwwood sounds that the new stuff. I run 2 Cerwin Vega 15 and a Soundcraftsman EQ. The sound is rich, deep, and as loud as the picture frames on the walls, and the neighbors will allow.It has gotten heavy use, just about every weekend. I have had to replace the power switch, it broke in the on position. (I mused that it just wanted to play more) It has truly been a friend and companion. It had made many a party memorible. If you can put your hands on one grab it. (Take someone with you to help carry it cause it's heavy but just get it!)It is truly a quality peice of equipment. I really enjoyed reading all these reviews, and concurred with just about all of them.

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Old Marantz equipment, nothing this big though.

PURE RAW POWER!

DOES NOT PICK RADIO STATIONS UP WELL, YOU NEED A VERY STRONG ATTENNA

RAW POWER!I HAVE AN EQ HOOKED UP WITH IT AND WITH MY PEAVY SPYDER SPEAKERS(THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES I HAVE NOT BLOWN YET!)MY SYSTEM HAS NEIGHBORS COMPLAINING BLOCKS AWAY!HE-HE-HE! I ALSO HAVE A PAIR OF BOSE901'S THAT HAVE HAD THE WOOFERS REPLACED 2 TIMES ALLREADY AND BOSE SAYS YA CANT BLOW THEM!MY SON WHO PLAYS GUITAR HOOKS HIS GUITARS UP TO MY KENWOOD AND THE SOUND IS EXCELLENT!OVERALL THIS SYSTEM IS ONE OF THE BEST BUILT SYSTEMS THERE IS AND IF YOU CAN EVER GET YOUR HANDS ON ONE, YOU BEST GET IT BEFORE I DO!(1 IN THE BEDROOM WOULD BE NICE TOO!) I HAVE USED MY SYSTEM FOR 8 HOG ROAST NOW THAT IS SO FAR OUT IN THE BOONIES, BUT STILL HAVE THE CLOSET FARMER STILL COMES DOWN TO JOIN US CAUSE HE HEARD OUR MUSIC, SO IF THIS ISN'T A GOOD SUMMARY ABOUT THIS RECIEVER, GOOD LUCK BEATING THIS RECIEVER!

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HAD A SANSUI 260 WATT PER CHANNEL SYSTEM ONCE, LIKE MY KENWOOD BETTER!

Massive stable power, great sound, gorgeous good looks, fine tuner, power 3 sets of speakers, great tape dubbing controls, intelligent layout and controls, just about every necessary feature you can imagine except a remote.

None really. It's heavy and 23" wide. Creates alot of heat so keep it well ventilated. Phono section is acting up on me. Finding parts and someone local who's qualified to work on it.

Purchased this one new after buying 3 receivers in 6 months I decided the stop the madness by getting the best I could afford. From the moment you power it up and see the beautiful display you can tell this thing is special. This is the best looking and best sounding receiver I've ever owned. I've used it for parties, bars, banquet halls and outdoor parties and it never failed to impress. Of course it sounds great at home too. Except for the broken things that I've shaken off the shelves, I have no complaints. Aging has caught up with it with a couple of burnt out display lights and a scratchy balance control. It's been stored for a while now but reading these reviews has got me fired up to get her going again. They truly don't make them like this anymore.

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You name it - I've owned it. I'm a audio junky.

Power, overall quality. At $5, the bargain of the century.

Where do you keep this monster? You'd better have a large, strong shelf.

The wooden cabinet has a few scratches, but all the receiver needs is a couple new indicator bulbs (not really necessary, the ones for "FM" and speaker "C"). It's bulky and weighs more than sixty pounds, but has tremendous power. I tried a tuner drift test, and after six hours, the needle had barely moved. Very stable.

Soldly built. Sensitive tuner. Fine, fine good looks. Easy to work on.

Tuner output stage uses cheap opamp (easily remedied). Heavy, and at 23" wide, won't fit in many audio cabinets (including mine).

Always wanted a KR-9600. Was the kind of gear I'd drool over back in the 70's. When my old Nikko tuner gave up, I thought I'd snag a decent Kenwood tuner on eBay, but always got sniped at last moment. Finally decided to just grab the 9600 for the tuner, and use the amp section for rear channel surround. I received the 9600 and marveled at how nice it looks. Tuner was pretty sensitive, but I had a Pioneer SX-1250 in for repair at the same time, and the Pioneer's tuner was superior (slightly). Moreover, the output of the tuner uses a el-cheapo JRC op-amp that is barely better than a 741C that no-one in their right mind would use for audio. So although the tuner did a decent job of picking up stations, I felt the sound quality of the tuner was lacking. Replaced the JRC op-amp with a Burr-Brown OPA2604 (a whole $3.00 investment) and sound quality is much improved. The power supply uses four 10,000µf caps, as opposed to, say, the Pioneer 1250 which uses four 22,000µf caps (even though both are rated to 160WPC). Kenwood had to cut corners somewhere, as the 9600 was the cheapest TOTL receiver of the Japanese big-dogs. The input to the amp section uses two tantalum caps in series, which is generally a no-no for audio, and these were replaced with quality audio caps (to be honest, I didn't hear much improvement, and the amp section is fine sounding anyway). The amp itself uses a hybrid power module where the drivers, bias, and power output stage share a single large heat spreader, which makes the amp track thermal changes quite well. The downside is that the module has not been available for many years, should you somehow let the smoke out of one (the output CAN be rebuilt with discrete parts, but it's best to avoid doing something stupid and having to go to the trouble). The two complete phono sections are very nice, one with a 5mV rated sensitivity (bipolar input, capacitor coupled), and the other rated at 2.5mV (FET input, DC coupled). Both are very, very good sounding phono sections, and each has its own sonic character. Nice to have a choice when spinning up old vinyl, but I personally prefer the FET phono section with my V15VxMR cartridge. Overall, those who purchased the 9600 new back in the day got a lot for their money. Now, in 2003, the receiver simply smokes anything sold for under $1500, although I'd recommend dumping the POS opamp in the tuner stage. There might be better vintage receivers out there (possibly the incredibly overbuilt TOTL Pioneer's), but none have the look, feel, sonic character, or history of the KA-9600 Kenwood. Recommended.

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Pioneer SX-1250 and 1280.

Unbeatable power and clarity. Plenty of inputs for CD player and computer.

Was passed down to me from my father who bought it as a teen. Awsome power. Have yet to find anything that can compare to its power and clarity. Have some problems with the rigth channel cutting out at low volumes but it very rarely is used at that low of volume. Unit itself is very heavy and takes up a lot of space, small sacrifice for what I get out of it.

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Sounds awsome with a pair of Cannon-TLS model 1230's.

Delusions of Grandeur

Damaged Hearing

My KR9600 was coated with years of accumulated dust,smoke tar,and general grime you could see it through the louvers. I removed the cover took it outside laid it on its side and hosed it down with a quality electronics (plastic friendly) cleaner. Working from the top down operate switches while rinsing I repeated untill the cleaner ran clear. After allowing plenty of time for the cleaner to evaporate I plugged Kenwood back in cleared all my problems although I hade to retune the radio section. They say todays equipment was not designed to and will not give this kind of lifetime service!

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Rebuilt Jensens

I bought my KR-9600 in the 70's. I still really love it. It is so powerful. If the volume is on 2 it's blasting everyone out of the room. I rebuilt my Electrovoice speakers that I bought in the 70's. I replaced the rotten 12" radiators with 12" Pyle subwoofers. They sound so rich with a dvd movie. The bass is wonderful and distortion free. The only problem that I can't seem to completely cure is the flip switches stay dirty and sometimes it causes the right channel to cut out and I have to work the switch up and down a few times to get it to come back on. I sprayed air in the switch but it didn't help. I can deal with it though.