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Kenwood KA-2002A

hpsenicka

hpsenicka

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Thought I would post a pic of the KA-2002A, since not a lot of folks seem to be familiar with this unit.

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I don't have any specs or documentation for this unit, but I have deduced that it was available from around 1971 to 1973 or thereabouts... and I believe it is rated around 20wpc. EW has suggested this is a capacitor-coupled amp design based on my experience attempting to check DC offset.. (http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=375575#post375575 look at post #618 in the thread) That's about all the detail I have... if anyone has additional information, I'd appreciate it hearing about it.

This unit interestingly does not have a speaker selector switch, and only has one pair of speaker terminals. Inserting a plug into the headphone jack cuts off the signal to the speakers.

My amp is presently doing duty as an amplifier for my computer, with AUX inputs connected to my PC sound card, and using a small pair of bookshelf speakers. I did a brief test using a tuner and CDP as sources, and it sounds quite good.. especially driving my Grado headphones.

There was a similar KA-2002 that was available around the same time, or may have been the predecessor of this model. The front panel looks very similar, except with black knobs, and I seem to recall seeing pics of a KA-2002 rear panel that showed main-in/pre-out jacks.

Here is a pic of the rear panel of the KA-2002A...

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... and a top view nude.
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close up of the main board..

here is a better close-up pic of the main circuit board...

The two larger axial caps in the bottom of the photo are 1000uf 25V ELNA caps..

The large radial cap standing in the upper left corner of the photo is a 50V 2200uf ELNA.....

The simple layout of this amp probably makes it a good candidate for learning some recapping skills, and possibly even some minor upgrades along the way.... nothing drastic, just perhaps increasing values of caps where it might make a positive difference.
 
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image.jpeg I know this thread is old, but I figured I could still give an opinion in case someone else runs into one. I use mine as a headphone amp with a nakamichi 600 which unfortunately has no headphone outlet of it's own. I have also experimented with using it to drive vintage high efficiency speakers like my votts. This is a sweet little amp. No power, but very warm and detailed. I wouldn't mind finding the other model with pre out and amp in connections. I think this would be nice for the tweets while bi-amping. It has a nice tubelike sound and costs very little when they pop up. Right this second, I'm listening to the Beatles white album with my koss pro4aaa cans plugged in. Tape is denon hd7 and well recorded. My oldest son is a headphone guy and he has a dedicated tube headphone amp. When I talked him into listening for a second, he didn't care for the music, but was knocked out by the clarity and rich sound.....from a cassette. Bottom line is that this tiny kenwood integrated amp gets my vote (assuming the price is right...I am after all cheap.)
 
these amps are still alive!
bought mine for 10 euro's in non working condition, working on it now, getting rid of the 2sc458 and some caps, had a dead short when i first tested it, was a shorted cap around the fuse.
one channel has les power then the other, try to fix it but sounds nice so far!
 
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