Recent Acquisition-Kenwood KR4140

FluxT

Super Member
I recently purchased a vintage Kenwood KR4140 receiver a couple weeks ago, and while it's in fairly good working order, I'd like to know what I need to generally look out for. Mostly, it's just little things-scratchy knobs and dead lights, which I'm sure will either go away with some deoxit or swappable parts. Haven't quite noticed the magical vintage sound quite yet (probably couldn't tell it apart from my modern Onkyo or Pioneer Elite amps if you blindfolded me), but the aesthetics and tactileness alone are worth it. Also has some interesting features that I'd never seen before on anything, specifically two phono inputs (both for MM carts) and an RCA jack for a center channel speaker (works just fine for a powered sub, go figure). My only gripes are the awful awful speaker connectors (the screwy kind), and 18wpc is less than what I'm used to working with, but those are livable for now.

It did come with a free pair of Electrovoice EV11 bookshelves, which sound...well they remind me of HTIB satellites but more plugged up and fatiguing to listen to. Prying them open and removing the stuffing has freed them up somewhat, but I'll stick with my '80s Fishers and modern Polk TSi's for now.

So my questions are:
1) Deoxit will take care of the scratchy knobs, right? Only the bass and input knobs seem to scratch, but the treble doesn't seem to really increase until the knob's twisted to at least +6. Any way to check that, outside of just doing an RTA with some pink noise?
2) Where can I get a replacement for the tuner and FM Stereo lights?
3) My Polks (TSi100's) are rated for 20 watts minimum, just above the 18wpc spec'd by Kenwood. They certainly don't sound starved or weak when paired with the Kenwood, but I know that too little power can also be a bad thing, and I'd rather not have anything bad happen to them.
4) Anything I really need to watch out for with these? It is a decades old piece of equipment, and I have no real clue as to it's prior history, aside from the fact that it sat on display at my local record shop for at least a year until I bought it (talked the owner down from $75 to $55). Surprisingly it's got no funky smells and doesn't even get hot after being run fairly hard for several hours, so I assume it's been well-maintained/designed.
 

Attachments

  • photo_2017-11-17_18-16-58.jpg
    photo_2017-11-17_18-16-58.jpg
    59.1 KB · Views: 16
Back
Top Bottom