It was built by "Planet Research" which was 49% owned by Lafayette. Earlier Rx's were built by "Trio" which became "Kenwood". Since I was a manger for the Manchester Ct company store I took a LR-1500ta to a mac clinic at the "Stereo Shop" in Hartford and the max power was 35 watts rms per channel at .5% harmonic distortion-we sold thousands (company wide) because of many great reviews.
I worked for Lafayette's Syosset main office in the QC department from Jan 1968 to Nov 1969. During that time, the LR-1500T was current, along with similar-looking, lower-priced models, LR-1000T and LR-500T. There was also the LR-1200T that was being phased out from the previous year. The entire line of stereo receivers sold well because they had excellent reviews and were great performers in their price range.
However, the advertised power output figures were somewhat exaggerated during that time period before the FTC stepped in to make a level playing field in the power output measurement arena. The LR-1500T was advertised as
150 watts IHF at 4 ohms (in 1968),
175 watts IHF at 4 ohms (in 1969) and 120 watts IHF at 8 ohms in both years. In the 1971 catalog, the LR-1500TA was advertised at
240 watts +- 1 dB and 190 watts IHF without specifying load impedance.
Although I haven't found it yet (because I'm a new member), I'm sure the subject of inflated power measurements in the late 1960s into the early 1970s has been covered elsewhere in AK.
All manufacturers later on had to advertise power output in RMS power at a stated harmonic distortion. The 35 watts per channel RMS for the LR-1500TA would be a more realistic measurement. See how inflated the advertised power figures were in those days? It would not be uncommon to see
power consumption by the product to be under the power output stated by the advertisements, an achievement that breaks the laws of physics! The power delivered to the speakers ultimately comes from the wall outlet!
Although Lafayette did have some early and mid-sixties communications receivers produced by Trio, the line of stereo receivers that I mentioned above were produced by Fujitsu. During the time period that I worked at LRE, Fujitsu phased out contract manufacturing for Lafayette. Planet Research continued to produce the identical product line seamlessly. I had never heard anything about Lafayette "owning" any part of Planet Research. Planet Research was one of many manufacturers Lafayette contracted to produce product for them.
Some of Lafayette's very early line of vacuum tube high fidelity and stereo products were produced domestically by United Scientific Laboratories who marketed their own products under the DeWald brand.
