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Kenwood KR-6160 -- Opinions?

Dr Tinear

Dr Tinear

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
I recently acquired an early-1970s Kenwood KR-6160 stereo receiver when my brother-in-law cleared out my late mother-in-law's house prior to listing it. It powers up, tunes on the AM and FM bands, and sounds more than decent over headphones. I haven't hooked it up to speakers yet. What do the Kenwood fans on the forum think of this receiver model? Is it trash, a treasure, or something between those extremes?
 
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I sold a Marantz 2252 to a friend for $250 a few years back who was moving and had it in storage. He asked if I had another receiver he could use until he was settled so I lent him my Kenwood KR-5150 I had put new caps and small signal transistors in that was just taking up space on a shelf. He got back to me and said he thought he liked the Kenwood a lot more than the Marantz, so I told him to compare the two when he got the Marantz out of storage.

He compared the two and he definitely liked the Kenwood more. He gave me the Marantz back and kept the Kenwood. This series receivers is very pleasant on the ears.
 
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Well built- will need to be recapped by now--Kenny made some VERY good stuff in the 70's to early 80's before they turned into black plastic crap. The only issue with the KR 6160 is that it has a face that only a mother could love...
kenwood_kr-6160_stereo_am-fm_receiver.jpg
 
The 6160 is the top of the 5150 series. It is a powerful cap coupled, great sounding receiver. It needs a recap and all its 2SC458 transistors replaced… they are causing background noise.
 
Looks like I need to do some parts-swapping on the KR-6160 and give it a serious audition because it's much closer to treasure than to trash.

The last Kenwood I owned was a KA-8100 integrated amp that I bought new in the late 1970s. it was solidly built, but the power amp section didn't sound that good with the Beovox speakers I had at the time. When I swapped a Dynaco Stereo 70 into the system to confirm that my repair work was solid, the ST-70 mopped the floor with the Kenwood. I kept the ST-70 in the system, bought a component preamp, and sold the Kenwood.
 
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