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New Kenwood L-06M's

Connor G

Connor G

Ear conditioned
Subscriber
Hey all!
I have been a long time user and lover of a set of L-07M monoblocks, and more recently, a L-07C preamp. The L-07M's have been my daily drivers for around 2 years now. I have put them up against every other amplifier I have had the chance to, and they always seem to come out on top. They've been fully restored, making them very reliable.
Last week, I saw a set of L-06M's on eBay, and decided to bid on them. Fast forward to 2 days ago, I won the auction! I got them for an incredible price, including shipping!
I have read amazing things about the L-06M's, and I think it would be awesome to compare the L-07M's to them. The specs on these suckers are absolutely phenomenal! They are 100V units, so I had to purchase a set of Sanyo step-down transformers to be able to use them in the US.
The only thing I'm worried about is that there is absolutely no service information online for them. No schematics or service manual. The seller says that they work very well, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to restore them fully.

I know there are a few active members on here that have these amazing amps, and maybe they can point me in the right direction.
I'll keep you all updated with the outcome of these amplifiers when I get them.

Side note: I am interested in the sigma circuit built into these amplifiers, but don't know how to use it. There are 4 speaker terminals on the back of each amplifier, and I read that all 4 get hooked up to each speaker. I have no idea if that's correct though. Any information would be appreciated!!!

L-06M.jpg

L-06M Specs.PNG
 
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Those appear to be the ones that were in BT. If the price had been along the lines of what you paid, the probably would not have made it to the bay. But whatever you have some interesting units to play with.
 
Blue Shadow said:
Those appear to be the ones that were in BT. If the price had been along the lines of what you paid, the probably would not have made it to the bay. But whatever you have some interesting units to play with.
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Hey Blue Shadow! I just learned that they were AK user redcoates7's. I didn't see them in Barter Town when they were posted unfortunately. Thanks for letting me know!
 
I have contacted some close friends, who have an abundance of equipment paperwork, about the L-06M schematics and service manual. I'm really hoping that one of them has the service manual at least.
Anyone ever come across anything for the L-06M's?
 
Hey Hackwhite

I've never been able to find a bit of paperwork (marketing/service/whatever) on them, and I've been looking for quite some time...I don't think they ever made it out of Japan, so the usual European and North American service centers never received any documentation. That's just conjecture on my part, but who knows?

Hope you enjoy them- the L-07M is likely a better amplifier, but these certainly run in the same pack, and the Sigma Servo addition is really neat.

(Speaking of, any speaker cable you have lying around will work great for the Sigma Servo leads- I always just used decent stranded 16 gauge which worked well on these and my KA-1000)
 
HackWhite, if you pull the covers, post some internal pics. I've love to see them. When I got my L-07s, I had to replace a few components due to cap glue corrosion. While not as easy as some amps, not too bad with edge connector boards.

I'd suggest looking at a few areas near any cap glue for green fuzzy wires.

rick
 
rickl said:
HackWhite, if you pull the covers, post some internal pics. I've love to see them. When I got my L-07s, I had to replace a few components due to cap glue corrosion. While not as easy as some amps, not too bad with edge connector boards.

I'd suggest looking at a few areas near any cap glue for green fuzzy wires.

rick
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Will do! Thanks for the tip!
 
So the L-06M's showed up today in great condition (Thank God)

Luckily, My 2 step-down transformers came yesterday, so I was able to test and use the L-06M's today.

I inspected both of the L-06M's for damage, and fired them both up. One of them had 2 relay clicks on the inside, and one only had one... I thought that was strange, but they both started working normally.

After about 20 minutes of low-volume listening and temperature checking, I cycled the power on both of the units. The unit that clicked twice on startup turned on just fine. The unit that only clicked once, however, started clicking very fast, about 8 times a second, and gradually got faster before turning it off.

I will upload and link a YouTube video here shortly that shows the symptom. It's very strange. I'm thinking that it could be a bad driver transistor in the protection circuit, or a bad thermal sensing diode on the heat sink...

After letting the unit cool down for about 30 minutes, I fired it back up and it turned on normally. I haven't messed with it after that, other than giving the exterior a good cleaning, which it needed desperately.

I'll keep everyone updated, and link the video here shortly.

Edit: Here is the video of the protection relay clicking frantically:
 
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On one of redcoate's older threads about these kennys, I found a link to the original hifido listing, and found that the amplifier that is giving me a little trouble has been repaired in the past. They had cleaned the relays, and replaced a set of small signal transistors.

It sucks having no service publications on these at all!

Edit: Here is the link to the original hifido listing:
https://www.hifido.co.jp/sold/08-38246-28197-00.html
 
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rickl said:
HackWhite, if you pull the covers, post some internal pics. I've love to see them. When I got my L-07s, I had to replace a few components due to cap glue corrosion. While not as easy as some amps, not too bad with edge connector boards.

I'd suggest looking at a few areas near any cap glue for green fuzzy wires.

rick
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Hey Rick. I had the L-06M's open, and searched for glue and corroded wires. I couldn't find much glue, and found no corroded wires. There is a problem with the protection circuit on one of the amplifiers though :thumbsdown:
 
So I cleaned both of the L-06M's today, and took some photos of them. I had them running for a few hours today and they didn't skip a beat.

There is something wrong with one of the amplifiers protection circuits, as it kicks in and out multiple times on startup. I should have it sorted out sometime soon.

They sound great so far, but I've only had them roughly set up, so I haven't gotten around to comparing them to the L-07M's. I need to get the protection circuit sorted first, before I use them too much more.

Here are some of the photos I took:

IMG_2667.JPG IMG_2669.JPG IMG_2692.JPG IMG_2676.JPG IMG_2696.JPG IMG_2700.JPG IMG_2703.JPG
 
HackWhite said:
On one of redcoate's older threads about these kennys, I found a link to the original hifido listing, and found that the amplifier that is giving me a little trouble has been repaired in the past. They had cleaned the relays, and replaced a set of defective outputs.

It sucks having no service publications on these at all!

Edit: Here is the link to the original hifido listing:
https://www.hifido.co.jp/sold/08-38246-28197-00.html
Click to expand...

Wow, that's even more than I even knew about them!

I truly wasn't aware of any operational issues with these- I'm sorry they're acting strangely, but am so glad they're making music! Photos look great.
 
Glad they made it back to AK.
Had I not been leaving the house when the auction ended, I would have given you a good run for them.
As it is I think I pushed you up a little, but not much. I could not stick around.
Enjoy, and post some nudes if you get the covers off again!
 
oldboats said:
Glad they made it back to AK.
Had I not been leaving the house when the auction ended, I would have given you a good run for them.
As it is I think I pushed you up a little, but not much. I could not stick around.
Enjoy, and post some nudes if you get the covers off again!
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Hey oldboats. Sorry about that! Don't worry. They are in a good home, and are going to be restored accordingly.

These are killer amplifiers and I couldn't resist not having another pair of Kenwood "L" series monoblocks! Enjoy the nudes above!
 
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